Dreaming of Flowers
by izadreamer
Summary: In which Alma Karma is recovered not by Central, but by a young Bak Chang determined to save the boy whose life his parents destroyed.
1. Deviation

**A/N:** Recent episodes of Hallow have brought back all my turbulent emotions over Alma's fate... so I wrestled my plot bunnies into gear and tried to find a semi-realistic way for Alma to have survived besides way of Central. Because Lvellier is awful.

This chapter is a bit gory, and there are mentions of suicide, seeing as it takes place right after Kanda left the Asian Branch. If you want to read this story but aren't comfortable with somewhat gory descriptions, I have a short summary of this chapter at the end. This is the only chapter that really delves into somewhat disturbing imagery, so I think I'm safe in saying the rest won't be as bad.

* * *

 **Chapter One**

 _-Deviation-_

Alma is drowning on dry land.

Drowning, drowning, drowning, his throat torn and face split open, blood in his lungs and mouth and pooling on the cold concrete floor beneath him. It settles in his bared throat, slowly strangling him. Every breath rattles in his lungs, watery and choked, and if he had the breath for it Alma would cough and vomit and spit until all that lingering blood is gone.

He does not have the strength for it.

He does not have the strength to cough, or vomit, or spit. He cannot even lift his arm—if he has one, and he should; his body has always healed so, so fast (inhumanly quick, inhuman healing, how did he not figure it out sooner—they're monsters, they always have been), but Yuu had cut at him and cut at him and for the first time Alma thinks he's used it all up. No more healing. No more next time.

It makes him want to laugh and it makes him want to cry, but his throat is torn to bits and he's only got one eye, really, and even that doesn't seem to working right, so in the end Alma does neither. He wants to, though, and it's a giddy thought, underneath all the fear and pain and horrible dread.

Alma is dying. Drowning, really, but maybe he's been drowning for a long time before now, too. Drowning in denial. Drowning in laughter. Drowning in the truth—always the truth. And now, in his own blood.

He can't see, can barely think, can barely feel, but he is terribly aware of the empty space beside him. No Yuu, no scowl, no reluctant warmth. He doesn't have a hand but even if he did, there would no one there to reach for. Yuu is gone, and everyone else is dead.

Except Yuu. Yuu isn't dead. Yuu had cried and snarled and sobbed and he had cut and cut until Alma couldn't move, and then he'd left, stumbling far far away, to the outside world and all its evils. This knowledge hurts almost as much as drowning does. It'd be better if Yuu died, it'd be better, because if Yuu died he wouldn't suffer, couldn't be used, could maybe even be free.

If Yuu died he wouldn't suffer, is what Alma had thought. But Alma is dying, and suffering, and drowning is so slow and so painful and maybe—maybe about this, Alma was wrong. Maybe Yuu was right to live.

It's too late, regardless. There's blood in Alma's lungs and blood in his mouth and blood pooling around what's left of his small, discarded (fake) body. Too much blood. His healing won't replace this, even if he wanted it too. And he doesn't, not really, because Alma hated the Second Exorcist project and he hated what they did, but Twi and Edgar had been kind for all their evils and they'd smiled so brightly and Alma killed them, all of them, even as they tried to help so—so maybe, this is his debt, his punishment. His karma.

Alma is going to die. He can feel it, in what's left of his bones and breath. There are shadows dancing across his vision and the world is so shiny and bright it's almost unrecognizable. He is too warm and too cold in equal measure, caught between two extremes, but the sensation is muted and soft as if felt from far away. Alma is drifting, dying, and he doesn't have a heart but he can feel his last few wisps of breath ease past his lips, the blood clogging his throat. He chokes, weakly spluttering, limbs jerking as he tries futilely to breathe again.

Sharp footsteps jolt him from his daze and he can hear a voice, muffled to his ears, high-pitched in distress. His eyes flicker open, and he struggles to focus, but his sight is too blurred to make sense of anything but a vaguely humanoid form with a shock of yellow hair.

 _Edgar….?_

A hand cups his face, and fingers curl in what's left of his hair. A voice, soft and breathy, says, "You're so young, you're so—what have we done to you? Oh, God. Look what we've done to you. You're so young."

Alma is vaguely aware of a hand, warm against his shoulder, tipping him onto his side. The voice says, "Are you sure?"

Alma's eyes flicker closed. The world around him feels so far away, but he is conscious enough to feel the hand grip his shoulder.

"Forgive me," are the last words he hears before his world finally grinds to a stop.

* * *

When Alma opens his eyes again, it's a blur. Voices rise and fall around him, faces peering down against a backdrop of white. He can't focus, he can barely think, but he has enough presence of mind to register what this means.

He's awake.

He's alive.

He isn't supposed to be alive.

His back arches and he tries to speak, but either his vocal chords aren't healed yet or they've stuck something in his throat, because what comes out is an inhuman shriek, piercing and animalistic. He thrashes, crying out, pain radiating from what feels like every inch of his torn body.

People call out, hands pressing down on him. Alma shrieks again, trying to throw them off, but he can't move his arm or his legs, and his head won't move the way he wants it too. It hurts, it hurts so much, and Alma just keeps screaming, until the sound dies, strangled off by raw, wet coughs.

Something red splatters before him, dribbles off his lips. His blood? He's not sure. There are people around him, reaching for him—he struggles and falls and when he hits the ground it's like dying under Yuu's sword all over again.

His vision whites out. He can't remember if he screams.

The world is a mesh of colors, of brightness, of loud beeps and aching pains. His vision clears, and he can make out shapes, if only vaguely. Boots, a carved cane. An old man with a cloudy monocle, withered face crumpled into an expression of grief, his gnarled hands reaching out for Alma's shoulder. Alma can see his mouth moving, repeating something over and over, even if he can't hear the man's words.

 _I'm sorry, child, I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry._

Alma tries to push him away, but his arm doesn't respond. He looks down, dazed, and sees why. No arm, no leg, an empty cavity where his chest should be, organs torn and exposed, bones protruding—

Alma turns away, spitting out blood and bile. He can't think. He can't hear. He shouldn't even be alive.

There's a prick, sharp and painful on his neck. A needle prick, felt only because of the difference in pain and the fact Alma is so familiar with them.

Alma stares up at the white ceiling, only half a boy and barely even human, and prays to a God he barely believes in that this time he doesn't wake up.

* * *

 _Alma runs down the hall, feet slapping bare tile, his robes fluttering about him. His breath mists in the cold air, and his toes feel like blocks of ice. He doesn't stop running._

" _Yuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"_

 _Yuu turns to him. His eyes are narrow and brow furrowed, mouth twisted in a snarl that softens when he sees Alma. He rolls his eyes. Alma beams at him and tries to stop—but the tile is slippery and his feet are bare—he's walking on ice, solid and thick—_

 _He slides, skidding in Yuu. Yuu yelps, a high pitched noise he'll deny making, later. They go down with a crash, in a tangle of limbs and muted swears._

" _Get off me, idiot!"_

" _Sorry!"_

 _Yuu rolls to his feet, bristling like a cat. He smooths down his uniform—his robes—a black coat with such a pretty emblem—_

" _What are you doing, running around like that?"_

 _Alma laughs. "I wanted to see you!"_

" _You see me every day!" Yuu snaps, but there's no heat to it. Alma grins at him, sheepish. Yuu glowers back, but he's biting his lip against a smile and turning his face away so Alma can't see it._

" _Help me up?"_

" _Ugh, idiot. You made us fall, help yourself up!" But he holds out a hand regardless._

 _Alma takes it and Yuu yanks him to his feet in one smooth motion. Alma brushes off the dirt from her dress, smoothing back the strands of her long hair into her usual ponytail—_

 _Alma brushes the dirt off his white robes, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Thanks, Yuu," he says._

" _Whatever," Yuu says, and turns away. Mugen thumps by his side—his side is empty—Alma curls his cold cold toes into the floor and runs up beside him, bouncing up and down to warm his feet._

" _What are you doing?"_

" _My feet are cold."_

 _Yuu stops. "What are you doing?"_

 _Alma blinks. "Uh—"_

 _Yuu grabs Alma's arm. The shorn edges of his short hair brush his neck with the motion, it's such a shame he isn't vain, because it would be so pretty if he just grew it out—the edges of his long hair brush his shoulders, and Yuu has always been vain about it. His eyes are wide, worried. Childlike, but Yuu isn't a child—_

 _Yuu is a child. He is worried. There is blood on his lips and his side is empty, no sword, no Mugen._

" _Alma," he says. There are scrapes running down his cheeks. Blood under his nails, tears in his eyes. In one hand he holds a feathery sword that Alma has never seen before—but of course she has seen it before—_

" _Alma," Yuu says, maybe sobs. His voice is so soft, so quiet, so wrong. "Alma, what are you doing?"_

" _Yuu," Alma says. He is barefoot on cold stone, body torn and healing, a weapon fused into his skin and over his arm. He is covered in blood, and most of it is not his._

" _What are you doing?"_

 _Alma is cold. Breath misting in icy air, toes like frozen blocks of ice. Cold like winter. Like snow. Like ice beneath bare feet, a thin protection from the dark waters below._

 _Yuu raises the sword. "Why?" he asks, and it's almost a plea._

" _I don't know," Alma whispers, and the pretty silver sword comes down on Alma's head just as the ice breaks beneath them._

* * *

He wakes up to silence. There is no noise, no people above him—just a solid white ceiling and quiet muffled beeps, soft and rhythmic. He's not in pain, either, but it's an artificial lack, the kind of peace that comes from too much anesthesia. He's numb, not healed.

He breathes, weak and fluttery. He isn't getting as much air as he feels he should. There's a dull but insistent ringing in his ears, and even his vision seems limited and shaded, the usual colors grayed.

The peacefulness of it all unnerves him. It feels like a lie. The world is not soft, or kind, or bright. It's a cage, and all this scene does is remind him that he's still in it. Alma is not dead, and neither is Yuu. The only thing Alma has succeeded in doing is killing or driving off everyone he has ever loved, left alone once again.

Nothing has changed. So then, what did he kill them for?

He starts to cry, tears soaking his numb skin, just barely felt. Only one eye is open—the other half of his face is tightly bandaged, the cloth sticking uncomfortably to his numb and sweaty skin. A thin blanket is tucked around his body (what is left of it, anyway), remaining limbs bound in plaster and tied gently to the bed.

"About time you woke up," a familiar voice says.

The noise startles Alma and he tries to move, but his neck is held mostly still and he can't quite manage it. There is a rustling noise as the person moves from their perch into view—a redheaded woman, as short as Alma but with pale green skin and strange blocks where hands should be.

It takes him a moment to remember her name. Fo. Her name is Fo, and she is a guardian spirit—or at least, that is what Alma had believed.

He's not so sure now.

"Don't even think about a repeat of last time, kid," she says as Alma stares at her, struggling comprehend the situation. "You just about sent yourself into shock again with that stunt, you know. You don't have _that_ much blood left in you, regenerative abilities or not."

"F-Fo?" he says. His voice comes out barely above a whisper, hoarse and dry and crackling like dead leaves.

Fo attempts a smile. It is weak, and thin, and wavers uncertainly on her face. "Hey, kid," she says, oddly gentle. "It's—good to see you."

Alma stares at her, blank with surprise and shock. "What… what are you…?"

"Saving your life, kid. Trying to, at least. There were a few close calls there for a while, but the general consensus is that you'll live, probably." She looks away. "Yuu did a number on you, that's for sure."

Despite her brusque words, her eyes are sad, and her shoulders are slumped. Alma only barely notices it. Barely cares, because what she's saying, what she's implying—what it _means_ —

Edgar had looked like that too, and Twi had had smiled that too, and they still did the things they did. And Alma had forgotten, because he only saw her once… only once, but isn't once enough? She was _there_. As he and Yuu tried to synchronize and got blasted back, again and again. As they put Yuu to sleep. As they _made them_.

 _There's a guardian spirit! I saw her once. She's a really cute girl, and her name is—_

Alma wants to _scream_.

"You were in on it," he tries to say, choking on the words. Fo seems to understand anyway—her smile drops, her eyes go wide. For a moment she seems truly, painfully startled. "You— _knew_ —"

"Kid, I—"

A machine in the far off corner starts to beep, shrill and frantic, and Alma thrashes, desperately trying to move limbs bound by plaster. "You knew!" he cries, half-sobs. "You knew! You helped them!"

Fo is beside him now, all the gruff kindness and teasing insults Alma had come associate with her nowhere in sight. "Kid," she pleads, "Alma—I know. I know. I should have stopped them. I should have done better. But Alma—" She stops, alarmed, eyes widening. " _Alma!_ "

Alma isn't listening. He thrashes on the bed, silent in his struggle but for a few involuntary whimpers of pain. Something seems to snap at his shoulder—stitches, probably—and blood trickles down his side as Alma reaches upwards to the sky, calling out both mentally and physically for his Innocence.

 _I'll finish this_ , he thinks, chillingly calm. _I'll kill them and then myself and then it'll all be over. For good._

No more experiments. No more pain. Yuu has already proved it could be done, and by the time Alma finishes, they'll be no-one left to interfere. He'll finally be able to die.

 _Come, Innocence. Help me again?_

By the bed, Fo yelps, as if in pain, lightning arching around her body as she collapses to her knees. She hugs herself, arms pressing against her shoulders. Her teeth are grit against the pain, but when she meets Alma's eyes there is only grim satisfaction and sad, knowing disappointment.

Alma's Innocence doesn't come.

Blankly, he stares at the ceiling, at his empty hands. Calls again. It isn't there. He calls and calls but there is no answer. No weapon. No easy way out.

Fo gasps for breath. Her small form is shaking so violently it's a wonder she manages to climb to her feet, and her smirk is tired and drawn. "Sorry, brat. I'm not… losing anyone else. Not today."

"What did you _do_?" Alma cries, but Fo doesn't answer him, just closes her eyes and rocks back on her heels.

"Sorry, Alma," she says again, and then nothing more.

Other people rush in the room, and the beeping machine in the corner reaches a pitch so high it hurts. Alma's vision swims with tears, Fo's pale and haggard face hovering above him.

"Why am I awake?" he asks her, weak and hateful. "I should be dead. You all should be dead. I want to die."

He cannot feel the needle-prick but he can see the man pull it out of his arm. He writhes on the bed, yanking futile at his restraints, barely feeling the sensation of fresh blood rolling down his face, tingly and disconnected from his numbed skin.

"I want to die," Alma sobs. "I want to die! I want to die! WHY DIDN'T YOU LET ME DIE?!"

Fo doesn't answer, her eyes shadowed and unreadable. She backs away from him, head bowing, lips pressed closed in painful silence.

The world goes fuzzy again, a sensation Alma is slowly becoming used to. He hates it. He hates her. He hates the air in his lungs and the beat of his heart and the pity on her face. He hates knowing that he will, eventually, wake up again to this hell—only this time he'll be facing it alone.

"I want," Alma tries, but he can't move his lips anymore and the world is slipping away from him. The colors swirl, melding into light, and all control over his body is ripped away, trickling like sand through his fingers.

Alma falls into a forced sleep, lungs breathing and heart beating; horribly, irrevocably, undeniably alive.

* * *

 _Summary: Alma lays dying after Kanda leaves, reflecting on past events, but is saved by a blond stranger (who he initially mistakes as Edgar) before blacking out. He wakes up numerous times, once in surgery, realizing that he is alive despite his best efforts. When he next awakens, it's to see Fo, who reveals she knew about the experiment but did nothing to stop it. Alma tries to activate his Innocence, planning on finishing what he started, but is unable to summon it due to Fo. Angry and grieving, Alma asks why they won't let him die before being forced back into sleep._

Let me know what you think!


	2. Eye of the Beholder

_A/N: The line that inspired like half of this: "it's almost like I'm an akuma" and I swear to god when his voice broke so did my heart. Give the kid a break and some self-esteem, please. Before I kill my TV with my tears._

* * *

 **Chapter Two**

 _-Eye of the Beholder-_

 _._

 _._

 _._

Fo blocks off the passage until four in the morning.

By the time the constructed wall collapses—for once by Fo's own choice, unaffected by the magic Bak has commanded for all his life—Bak alone remains by the passage. The dim evening light travels lower and lower across the walls as the day passes into night, eventually fading altogether. Bak spends the hours alternatively pleading with Fo or trying to find a different way through. He carves the activation lines into his hands so deeply the wounds nearly refuse to close, but his efforts came to no avail. His magic doesn't work and Fo never answers, and by the third hour, even Bak has given up on ever getting through until Fo desires it.

One by one, the few who had come with him leave his side. Even Wong is pulled away after Renee Epstein comes stumbling through the back door, weeping and incoherent before collapsing limply to the ground in exhaustion. She's the only one who has any idea of what's happened, after all, and her health takes priority.

(Bak's parents had told him nothing. He tries not to let that bother him.)

(He's failing.)

The rest of the Branch settles into an uneasy silence. Renee's emergence has brought after her a deep, consuming fear. Where before the closed-off section meant nothing but a place to avoid; now it is a place of nightmares. Fifty scientists, not including their Branch Head and Assistant, trapped inside and left to whatever fate Renee had so narrowly escaped.

It is for this reason that Bak spends the night alone by the makeshift wall, half-heartedly and weakly slamming bloodied fists against the stone at odd intervals in the foolish hope of a response. As the hours pass his vision grows dim with exhaustion, and by midnight he is collapsed against a pillar, head resting on the wall, tears drying on his cheeks as he slips into a restless sleep.

His dreams are vague and unsettling—dark and shadowed and blurry with figures made of light, shiny and indistinct to his eyes. Distant laughter and inaudible but horribly familiar voices whisper in the background. There's a hand on his shoulder and another stroking his hair, but no matter where he looks no one is there.

Sometime in the early morning, Bak finally wakes up to a slight pressure on his shoulder, blinking slowly and squinting through the darkness. Fo stares down at him, her hand resting against his cheek, her touch oddly gentle. The night sky is cloudy and dark, no moon or stars in sight, and the dim flickering light of a far-off lantern is the only thing that illuminates her face. For once, her smirking features are arranged into a look that almost borders on apathetic.

He jolts, struggling to awareness, a thousand questions rising to his tongue as he starts to climb to his feet. Fo never lets him speak—she gestures sharply, her makeshift hand pressing against his mouth, prompting him to silence and pushing him back to the ground. He stills at the cool sensation of her stone-cold limb against his face, blinking rapidly, mind struggling to emerge from the lingering smog of sleep.

"F-Fo?"

She doesn't answer.

As Bak's eyes adjust to the darkness, more details stand out to him: the hollow look in Fo's eyes, the deep shadows across her face, the blood drying on her arms and staining her front. He can see her blank face for the mask it is, and that coupled with her strangely gentle way of waking him—

The realization hits him like a wave of icy water.

Bak rocks back, away from her and the horrible pity in her eyes. His mouth feels dry, and something cold and hollow swoops in his gut. He thinks he might be sick.

"Fo," he says, and can't quite keep his voice from shaking. "Fo. My parents…?"

Fo looks away, and her shoulders slump ever-so-slightly. Bak feels like he's just been punched in the gut. He can't breathe. His head spins. His blood roars in his ears.

"No," he says.

"I'm sorry."

"No," he says again, and clamors to his feet, swaying unsteadily as the blood rushes to his head. His vision blacks out and he staggers, catching himself on a pillar before he tumbles. "No," Bak says, "no, no, they can't be, Mother and Father can't—"

Fo reaches for him and Bak rips himself away from her, stumbling down the now open passage. His breathing is loud and uneven to his ears, sharp and bordering on sobs. The lamps here are darkened, or maybe just destroyed, and he can't see anything no matter how hard he tries, not the floor or the hall or even his own hand.

His foot smacks the stone at an awkward angle, and he nearly trips, hand blindly searching for the wall that ends up being closer than expected. He shoves himself away, stumbling out into open space. Something squelches under his foot, warm water splashing up his ankle. The tip of his foot clips on an object— the edge of a raised stone, perhaps—and this time Bak can't catch himself in time.

He crashes to the ground, elbow smacking the stone floor, palms scraping across the rough surface. He stays there, momentum dashed, collapsed to his hands and knees in a dark hallway devoid of life, chest heaving for breath. He only realizes he's crying when the hot tears trickle off his face and onto his hand.

Footsteps come up behind him. "Stupid Bak," Fo says, but she sounds like she might be crying.

Bak breathes in, breathes out. He feels like there is a hand around his throat, choking him, smothering him, pressing down on his chest and shoulders. The air here feels so heavy.

He can practically taste it. Decay mixed with the papery taste of dry air, cold like a desert night wind. The sharp and tangy taste of blood, bitter in the back of his throat. Something horrible has happened here. Something straight out of his nightmares.

"What were they doing?" he asks her weakly. "Why didn't they tell me? How could—how did this _happen?"_

He hears Fo swallow. She doesn't answer.

He hates this. He hates her silence and the oppressive quiet of this forgotten hallway. He hates how no one has told him a thing, not his parents or Renee or even Fo. He hates how, even now, he will probably never know why.

He squeezes his eyes shut against the burn of new tears, curling into himself, hands closing into tight fists as his fingernails scrape against the stone floor. He doesn't understand. Only two days ago his parents were alive and—and here, with him. His mother had stroked his hair as she'd left. His father had caught his sleeve in the door and nearly tripped over his own feet before he realized. Bak's mother had rolled her eyes. His father had laughed.

There were real, they were alive, they were here—and now they are gone, slipping away from Bak's life with nary a goodbye.

Overtaken by a sudden and fierce desire, Bak slowly climbs to his feet. His fingers are shaking, and he feels feverish, but this one thought burns clearly in his mind. "Take me to them."

Fo hisses in a sharp breath. "Bak—"

"I have to know," he says, distantly calm.

"Know later," Fo snarls, and her voice trembles with rage, or maybe grief. "You're the Branch Head now, stupid Bak. You'll get the goddamn _report._ You don't have to—"

"I _do._ Fo, I—I have to." He can't explain it, he can't, and it's the only answer he has. "I have to."

She doesn't bother replying this time, but he can practically hear her grit her teeth, makeshift hands itching to slam over his head. She'll take him from here, if she feels she must. Knock him out and drag him to the infirmary and keep him there until there's no chance at all.

"Please, Fo," Bak whispers, and hates how pathetic he sounds, how young. "I want—I need. I need to see them." His voice shakes. _"Please."_

A deafening silence is his only answer and he waits, heart in his throat. The darkness presses down on him, suffocating. He can't see her face, or the thoughts that are writ there, and this terrifies him.

Finally, he hears her sigh, soft and shuddering. _"Stupid_ Bak." Another strangled pause, and then she says, almost a whisper, "All right."

Bak lets out a slow breath, shoulders slumping as his eyes press closed. A few tears escape anyway. "Thank you."

"Don't," Fo spits. "Don't you dare thank me for this. This isn't—not even _you_ are that much of an idiot, Bak."

He can hear the quiver in her voice, and a sudden rush of shame washes over him. Fo had loved his parents too. "Fo—"

She cuts him off, not with words, but with light. The darkened lamps spark and then illuminate, glowing fiercely in the narrow hall, casting eerie shadows against the blank stone. Bak is momentarily blinded, and he blinks hard, trying to clear his vision, looking down and squinting at—

He claps a hand over his mouth, turning away, bile burning in his throat. He's going to be sick. He can feel his hives breaking out on his skin, but for once the dizziness that sweeps over him has nothing to with them.

Bodies. Bodies, everywhere, lying discarded and dismembered all down the hall. Their eyes are blank and unseeing, white lab coats drenched in drying blood. Their veins stand out stark blue against the pale pallor of death.

The water he'd felt was not water. He had not tripped over stone.

Bak scrambles away from the corpse, all the hairs on the back of his neck standing straight up. He sags against the wall, doubling over, retching weakly onto the ground.

He has seen bodies before, stiff and cold in the grip of death, but those were in wooden coffins, white lilies hiding the wounds from view. This is not death as he has known it—these corpses are not restful, could not be mistaken for asleep. There are no lilies to hide how their faces twist or what limbs are missing.

He retches again, his stomach empty, thin and sour bile burning low in his throat. He coughs, hard, leaning limply against the wall with weak legs. His lips are trembling and he presses the back of his hand against them, skin cool, eyes wide and staring out at nothing.

Fo presses by his side, eyes wide and worried. "Stupid Bak," she says again, and it's almost an apology.

Bak presses the back of his clammy hand hard against his mouth, wiping bile and tears away. "Mother," he forces out, past the scream building in his chest. "Father. Show me."

Fo bites her lip. "Bak—"

"Fo." His voice drops, low and trembling, the words hissed past clenched teeth. " _Show me_."

Fo closes her eyes, head bowing. "So stupid," she whispers, almost to herself. "The whole lot of you. So stupid."

She shows him.

The closed off division is filled with bodies. They slump against walls and lie discarded in the rooms, ripped to shreds. Blood smears across the floor and the walls, iced over in the winter cold. And even with all those bodies, even knowing what it is he'll probably see, Bak is not prepared.

He finds them almost immediately and it is like a knife to the gut. He cries out, flinching away from the sight, fingers wrapping into the sleeve of his coat and ragged nails digging into the worn fabric. He curls into himself, biting his cheek so hard he tastes blood, sobs building in his throat.

They're dead. They're dead. Eyes closed and blood dried stiff on their coats and faces unnaturally slack. Dead. Gone forever. He'll never see them, never hear their voices, never be with them again.

He hadn't truly believed it, until now. Some small part of him had foolishly believed that maybe this time, this time, Fo was mistaken. Maybe his parents were alive. Maybe they were okay.

So stupid. He's been so stupid. Foolishly clinging to an impossible hope like the child he should have outgrown years ago, and now that the veil has been torn away he can't hold on to it. Like the corpses sagging like wilted flowers against the bloodied walls, there is no mistaking it. They're too pale. Too stiff. Too limp to even be mistaken for alive.

He never said goodbye.

He doesn't realize he's been wailing until Fo shakes him, cutting the horrible, heartbreaking sound off. It's too wild to come from him, he thinks, but his throat aches and he can barely see her through his tears. Maybe the scream is his after all.

"Bak," Fo says, and oh, he's worried her. No nickname, no insult, no teasing. Just fear and worry, and had this been any other time, Bak might have cared.

"They're dead," he says, and the reality of it all sinks into his bones and seizes him tight. "They're dead, they're dead—" He stops, running out of breath and out of words, burying his face in his hands and yanking at his hair with his fingers and _screaming._

This time Fo doesn't stop him. She stands over his crying form, watching over him. She waits and waits and waits and Bak doesn't know if she cried then, with Bak too hysterical to see, but he thinks she must have.

After a time his sobs die off, his tears running dry. Fo's hand is on his shoulder and he rests against her, too weak to hold himself upright. He feels faint and washed out, empty of emotion. He's so tired. He wants nothing more than to curl and sleep forever, for this to be nothing but a horrible, horrible dream.

But Bak's parents are dead, and that makes him Branch Chief now, and that means there are things he must do. Duties he must attend to. So he takes a deep breath and forces himself to his feet. He'll grieve them properly, later. When Fo isn't there and their bodies are not before him.

He turns away from them, unable to look any more. If he sees them again, he'll snap. And he can't break, not now. Not when he's the only one left. Not with the rest of the Branch huddled in fear only a few miles away from this section.

He needs… what does he need? Details. Knowledge. What happened, how, why. Who died.

 _Mother, Father—_

He deliberately shies away from that thought. He can't. He can't. Not now.

Survivors. He needs to look for survivors. Unlikely, but— but. Bak's parents are dead. If there's even one person, if he can save just one person—

Mechanically he starts to move, stumbling in the other direction away from his parents. The deep pods in the floor are filled with blood, half-formed bodies lying face down in the dark waters. He moves past them, past the scientists, past the CROW. The whole room is deathly silent, the only noise coming from the drip of water and the scuff of Bak's shoes on the floor.

He sucks in another breath and holds it, firmly pressing down on another wave of hysteria. He's well aware of the shake to his steps, and the back of his arms are splotchy with hives. He doesn't want to be here, but he can't leave, but if Bak stays one more second in this place—

Wait.

He hesitates, eyes wide, head tilting as he listens. For a moment—for a moment, he had almost heard…

There.

It's gurgling and weak, raspy and thin like an old pipe, but unmistakably a breath. Someone—even in this empty section, in the wake of this massacre—someone is alive.

He freezes, startled—in the back of his mind, he hadn't truly believed anyone could survive this—and when the person begins to cough, hacking and wet, every following breath a painful wheeze, he dashes forward. He slips a little on the blood-soaked tile, but finds his footing quickly, searching the wreckage for the lone survivor.

"Fo!" he says, sharply. "Contact the medics, tell them to bring…. Everything! Everything they can, I don't know how long they have." He doesn't wait for her reply, searching the ground and squinting into the gloom. In this part of the section the lanterns have all been smashed to bits of glass and metal, and visibility is low. He's in luck, though—there is only one body and even with his poor sight, he thinks he can almost see them moving.

He clamors over the rubble, struggling to reach the other as quickly as he can without upsetting the crumbled bits of wall. Unlike the rest of the division, here the area is in shambles, stone shattered and reduced to debris. There's a small sliver of the sky through the shattered pipes up above, faint moonlight peeking through.

When the survivor finally comes into view, broken form caught in the shadow of the light above, Bak chokes.

It's a child. A child with dark hair and wide eyes—eye, singular, the other unsalvageable—his small body torn and bloodied and left like a discarded doll. His whole front is torn wide open, as if a blade had struck at him again and again and again, his chest a map of crisscrossing slash marks. His right side is inhuman, misshapen; some strangle pliable white substance forcibly bonded to his skin. It looks almost like Innocence, like feathers, and it hangs heavy off the boy's small body, the edges of the white scythes dyed red with dried blood. The boy's one eye is open wide and unseeing, smeared blood in the shape of a small handprint drying on his cheek.

 _"Fuck,"_ Bak whispers, with feeling, and climbs gingerly beside the boy. "Oh, God. He's so young."

Fo steps up beside him, her face a mask of apathy. It is utterly unlike her, and the sight of it startles Bak so severely that for a second all he can do is blink up at her in surprise.

"Fo…?"

Fo doesn't react, her gaze entirely captured by the broken boy on the rocks. Her eyes are heavy-lidded and older than Bak has ever seen them.

"Yeah," she says finally, in a soft, hushed voice. "Young."

Bak turns away from her gaze, unsettled and trying not to show it. "Never mind about the medics," he says finally, heart heavy with guilt. "He probably… with those wounds, he won't survive the night." He swallows, pressing a hand against his eyes. He's cried _enough,_ damn it. And yet…"Why… why was a child here? Mother, Father, just what…?"

"Bak." Fo sounds strange, oddly strangled. Torn. "Bak, he… he could."

Bak looks up, shaken from his thoughts. "What?"

"He could survive," Fo clarifies. "He… he was part of the experiment. There's some healing factor. I, I don't know if it's still there or if it will make a difference, but…"

Bak breathes out slowly, deliberately choosing to focus only the important part. He can freak about everything else later. Later. "But there's a chance," he says, and blinks fast against a new wave of tears, relief swooping in his gut. "Hurry, tell them—tell them to hurry!"

"Bak—"

"What is it?"

She stops. Swallows. "Nothing," she says. "Just—we can't wait. He's already dying."

The boy, as if in answer, gives a soft gurgling cry of pain, remaining eye wide and bloodshot. His mouth moves as though to speak, shoulders shaking as he tries to breathe past the blood filling his lungs.

"R-Right," Bak says, and cups the boy's face almost on instinct, fingers curling in the remains of his dark hair. The boy's remaining eye almost seems to focus on him, bleary and confused. "God," Bak murmurs, voice brittle as glass. The boy is so small, so horribly tiny. His fingers are trembling. "You're so young," he whispers to the boy. "You're so—what have we done to you? Oh, God. Look what we've done to you. You're so young."

"Bak."

He draws his hand away. "I know."

The boy's eyelid flickers and his mangled face twitches as Bak rolls him to the side as gently as he can. Blood dribbles from his mouth, no longer pooling in his throat, but his breathing isn't improving. Bak is no doctor, but he's been with Wong long enough to know the basics. They'll have to drain his lungs—what's left of them, at any rate—of fluid, or he'll drown before they can help him.

Fo steps up beside him, one arm transformed into a scythe, the blade gleaming wickedly in what dim light remains in the cavern.

"Fo?!"

"The Innocence," she says sharply in response, gesturing impatiently to the bone-white substance clinging like glue to the boy's body. "We need to cut it off."

Bak hesitates. "It's melded to his skin," he says, quietly.

"I'll be gentle. I won't go deep. He'll probably lose that arm, though." Her voice drops. "There's no time for long explanations. Just—Stupid Bak, just trust me."

He looks back down at the boy. He is so small. So thin. So young. "Are you sure?"

 _"Bak."_

Bak releases a shuddering breath, closing his eyes. "Okay," he says. To the boy: "Forgive me."

Fo raises the scythe high. Her eyes are set, focused. But there is grief there, and regret, and it is that that prompts Bak to release the child's shoulder, moving away.

"Forgive me," Fo echoes, and brings the scythe down.

* * *

By some miracle, the boy makes it through the night. And the next. And the next.

It would be comforting, if it weren't by the skin of his teeth.

Fo had told Bak the boy's name, along with a dire warning to keep it quiet. She hadn't explained—much like her choice to cut away the Innocence, it is something that will have to wait.

Alma, science experiment. The only survivor of the Second Exorcist Project—at least, from the information Bak has currently. He's not convinced. There is supposed to be another subject, Yuu, but his body has not yet been recovered. And every massacre needs a perpetrator.

He's not sure, yet. But he can guess.

Whatever happened to Alma in that lab, it's left him barely a shell. One leg is deemed unsalvageable, one arm gone completely. Half of his body is essentially torn to pieces. Whatever healing factor he once had is gone, now, and seems to be draining more each day. Bits and pieces of his body almost appear to be shifting to chalk, growing pale and crumbling beneath the slightest touch. And that would be bad enough as is, except—he won't stop bleeding. His wounds won't close, his blood doesn't clot, it's been three days and he's still bleeding.

Fo says it's not hemophilia, but the truth is Bak has no choice but to treat it as such. The kid's wounds just won't close. He's hooked up to all the blood they can possibly spare, but they can't waste all of it, and what they can use they are quickly running out of. The drugs help slow it down, a little, but he's got an amputated arm and leg, and it's just… not enough.

By the next day, he'll likely bleed himself dry. The fact he's still alive as it is, is miraculous, but every miracle has its limits. Alma is reaching his, and quickly.

Fo says, on the third night, that Alma's inborn healing ability was all used up. Bak has spent the rest of his time trying not to think about the implications of that.

Eventually, on the fourth day, Bak says, "We need help."

Fo clicks her tongue at him. Despite her reservations about Alma, she's rarely slept these past four nights, constantly by his side, and his worsening condition has left her irritable and snappish. "Obviously," she says, shortly. "But who?"

"My great-uncle. Zhu Mei Chang. His healing abilities…"

Fo doesn't look at him, merely watching Alma sleep. That's another worry. Not only is the boy not healing, he's also not waking up. It's a coma that Bak fears may be permanent.

"Are you sure?" Fo asks finally. "That idiot's the one who authorized it, you know."

"Of course I know!" Bak snaps, a little incensed. He's spent the last three nights reading up on the incomplete documentation that exists on the project and crying his eyes out, alternatively. He doesn't remember being this weepy before. "But Alma won't… he'll die, otherwise."

Fo just sighs. "Whatever. I'll find him. Keep him alive one more day, got it, idiot?"

"I don't need you to tell me that," Bak grumbles, but Fo is already gone.

She does find Zhu. Bak isn't there for that, and neither is he there when Zhu performs the healing session, too caught up in keeping the Branch from falling into chaos after the massacre. He hears about the incident, though, and meets with Zhu just before he leaves.

The look on the old man's face—haunted, drawn, as though staring into the depths of hell—is enough to make him shiver. Maybe they were right to doubt Zhu, though not for the reason Bak initially thought. He knows that look; he's seen it on his own face in the mirror. The face of one just about to break.

"That child," Zhu says, sudden and fierce, gripping Bak's shoulder. "That boy—please. Take care of him. We… he's suffered enough, hasn't he? We've done enough. Please, let him…"

Bak swallows, pressing his lips together in a flat line. "I know," he says. He glances down the hall, where the replacement CROW wait impatiently. Central had allowed Zhu to come, under the impression he was grieving for his dead family. They have yet to learn of what—and who—Bak has recovered from the rubble. He intends to keep it that way.

"I will," Bak promises finally, and squeezes the hand on his shoulder. "But please, Old man Zhu… keep this quiet from Central. Just until I know what to do."

Zhu closes his eyes. There's an odd expression on his face, one Bak can't quite read. "If it lets that boy rest in peace," he says, so soft Bak has to strain to hear him, "I will do anything."

In the end, Bak is glad Zhu leaves when he did. He doesn't think the man would have been happy to know his healing abilities, enough to finallyclose Alma's wounds and reawaken his mind, would have resulted in this.

Bak closes the door gingerly, feeling empty and hallowed from what he'd heard, running a tired hand down his face. By his side, Fo is silent; her shoulders drawn up and face miserable.

Bak thinks of the boy, lying in a drugged sleep. Thinks of his angry, howling words, the tears gathering in his one eye. Thinks of the blood on the white Innocence, and how many wounds must have healed before that seal ran out.

"Fo," he says quietly. "Why did you cut away the Innocence?"

Fo looks up at him, then turns away. She looks small and tired, and very nearly like a child herself.

"Because I knew what he'd do with it," Fo says sadly, and Bak closes his eyes.

* * *

When Alma next awakens, he is moving.

He lies still on the hospital bed, limbs heavy from either exhaustion or drugs, looking blankly through one half-lidded eye at the ceiling. The screech of wheels on the floor echoes around them, nearly drowning out the rapid footsteps that rap just beside Alma's bed.

He blinks slowly, sleep dragging at his mind like a sticky glue as he watches the lights flicker overhead, there and gone again as they travel the corridor. His eyelashes stick to skin, the crust of sleep lingering in the corners of his eye.

After a while, he feels aware enough to move, and he tilts his head slightly, gaze sliding from the ceiling to the wall, and the white-knuckled hand of the man pushing the bed. Blond hair, narrow face, white coat.

Alma sucks in a sharp breath, chokes, and starts coughing. The man—Doctor Edgar?! But no, it's impossible, Doctor Edgar died and Alma killed him—pauses, head snapping over, eyes stern and mouth drawn into a frown.

"Alma," he says in a clipped voice, nodding at him. "You're awake. Good. I'll have to request you to stay quiet if you can—we're in a bit of a tight spot. We'll talk more in a moment."

Alma frowns, confused. It takes him a moment to work through all the words and their meanings, his thoughts slow and simple. The sudden understanding doesn't help— the words don't make sense to him.

He tries to speak, but a sharp pain in his throat convinces him otherwise, and he ends up making a high-pitched noise instead. The man pauses, the bed lurching to a stop.

"I'm sorry," he says. "This must be confusing for you. I am taking you somewhere safe, but I can't say much more. Please indicate to me if you feel uncomfortable on the way over; you are still healing."

He waits for Alma to respond, and when he doesn't, just sighs. The bed starts moving again.

Uncomfortable, Alma wonders. Uncomfortable. What counts as uncomfortable? Because his limbs are sore and aching and his wounds throb with every heartbeat, and he feels like his entire right side has been skinned raw, his nerves blistering in pain. Moving slowly won't change that.

Besides which—It's weird. Weirder than the name thing, even. Alma is fairly certain he's going to be put back under experimentation. He's alive, see, and so long as he's alive the Order won't ever stop. They can't trust him with the Innocence now, so they'll do something else, something worse. They'll make him bleed for what he did. Yuu's alive and Alma's alive and because of that humanity is going to destroy them both.

 _See, Yuu? It'd have been better if we died._

But if Alma is going to become their experiment, if they're going to continue the Project all over again—why would they care if he felt uncomfortable? He killed all the last scientists, and Doctor Edgar and Chief Twi had been all he'd known. Do they think a friendly face will stop him this time?

Though, maybe not. The man doesn't look friendly. He's got Doctor Edgar's hair and Doctor Edgar's nose and narrow face, but the more Alma looks at him the more he is very clearly not the doctor. His eyes are too narrow, the color too dark. He's got a severe slant to his face, and it makes him look serious and sharp in a way Doctor Edgar never really managed. He looks… a bit like Chief Twi.

 _Weird._ Alma nearly shivers.

The man stops suddenly, the bed jolting. Alma winces, and the man gives him an apologetic look.

"Apologies, Alma. Are you okay?"

Alma stares at him, not entirely sure how to answer. The man's frown deepens, and then he clears his throat and looks away.

"Right," he mumbles. "Argh, stupid question." He takes a deep breath and turns to Alma again. "We're here. I'm going to have Wong set you up on some devices, so there will be some needles. I'm… sorry if this makes you uneasy. I'll try to answer some of your questions in the little time we have."

Alma licks his lips in a nervous gesture, tasting blood. They're cracked and bleeding, and he can feel the bandage on his upper lip, dry and papery to the taste.

"Okay," he tries out, hesitantly. His voice creaks through the word; the sound similar to that time Yuu grabbed a rusted old pipe and dragged it against the walls.

Even the man winces to hear it, and Alma sinks back a little into his pillows, cheeks heating up.

"It'll be quick," the man says finally, politely ignoring Alma's sore excuse for a voice. "After our talk, we'll hook you up again, but I'm afraid the drugs have a side effect of making you sleep. It'll have to wait until after. I'd prefer you completely lucid for this, is all."

The man pauses, looking intently down at him. Alma stiffens, fear closing his throat, but after a few moments of uncomfortable silence, he realizes the other is waiting for a response.

He considers, for a brief wild second, not doing anything at all. But the likely result of that or anything other than what the Doctor Edgar-lookalike wants is bound to be painful and Alma is… tired. He hurts so much and he hurts _everywhere_ and he just wants to rest, if only for a little while.

Besides. It's not like anything he does will make a difference.

Decision made, Alma tries to nod around the stiff bandaging. The man's face creases into a small, tiny smile. The resemblance to Doctor Edgar is increased tenfold, and Alma looks away, eye burning and throat tight.

He's rolled into the room, almost identical to the one he was in before, only smaller and with no windows. The grimy lamp on the ceiling flickers weakly as they enter, just barely illuminating the empty chamber. The air is stale here, and a little dusty.

In contrast to the old room, the equipment is new and shiny, out of place in such a clearly abandoned area. The man must notice Alma's confusion because he says to no-one in particular, "It's part of the old building we built the Branch into. These rooms haven't been used in years. It's safe here," he adds, almost an afterthought.

For some reason, Alma finds this funny, and he bites back an uncharacteristic bark of bitter laughter, turning his head away. He has a good view of the door on the far wall, and as such is the first to see another man enter. The newcomer is broad-shouldered and bearded, towering over the first. He comes up to Alma's bedside and smiles at him, oddly gentle for a man with such a frightening visage.

"My name is Wong," he greets, gruff voice made soft. "Please allow me to treat you. I'll make this quick."

He too waits until Alma nods before going to set it up. None of these people make sense. Alma's life is essentially forfeit now; he knows this and is, in the absence of escape by death, resigned to it. He's been calling out to his Innocence this whole time, but nothing has happened. He can't kill himself, he can't move or run—there is no way to escape from this fate, and Alma wishes they weren't making it so confusing. Twi and Edgar had done this too.

It would be simpler if they made it easy to hate them. But they have to be kind, and sweet, and use soft voices, and in the end that makes their actions all the more painful. Alma dreads the second that smile disappears, because that is when the cycle starts all over again.

Wong carefully rolls Alma's bed to the far wall, inserting a strange clear tube across his face and in his nose, and a small needle in his upper arm. He's horribly gentle in helping Alma sit up, if only slightly, the very act of moving so exhausting it's almost ridiculous.

Finally Wong steps away, nods at the blond man and smiles again at Alma, then walks out of the room with nary a glance back.

The blond man clears his throat. Alma, who had up till then been watching Wong leave and quietly dreading what might come after, snaps his gaze to him quickly.

"Alma," the man says again. "I imagine you have questions. I'll do my best to answer them."

Alma watches him, wary, and tries to clear his throat. It feels a bit like someone jabbed a knife down it, and he can't quite stop his flinch. But this is more important, and Alma has lived most of his short life in pain. He can handle this.

"Who… are you?"

The man looks surprised, and then a little embarrassed. "Oh, I—I'm sorry. I thought you would know, since I imagine you knew—" He stops, and clears his throat, looking away. "I am Bak Chang. Son of Edgar and Twi. Ah. Branch Chief, too, now."

Alma stares at him, stunned. Chief Twi had mentioned her son once—when she'd explained childbirth to him, and how normal people were made. _My son has a little of both of us in him_ , she'd said, and smiled. _He'd like you, I think._

"Oh," Alma says, and feels very suddenly like crying.

Bak shrugs one shoulder, obviously uncomfortable, and sighs. "Regardless. You're probably wondering what's going to happen now, right?" He waits, but when Alma doesn't answer, simply keeps talking. "Your wounds were great, and for a few days you were in a coma. Zhu Mei Chang healed you. From what we can tell, his own power sealed up the wounds in your head and prompted you to wake, while a majority of it… the best I can think of it, 'recharged' the seal in your chest."

Alma blinks. Squints at him.

Bak huffs a dry laugh. "It's confusing, yes. Ah… the best way I can put it is, your healing factor was reawakened, but is drastically weaker than what was noted during the… Um." He clears his throat. "It is weaker than before. It may well be you'll end up healing slower than most regular humans, actually. So, ah…to summarize, please be more cautious than you normally would."

"Oh."

"Oh," Bak agrees. He sighs, softly, settling back into a lone chair to watch Alma warily, one hand rubbing his shoulder. "You're taking this awful calmly."

"Nothing's all that different," Alma says, and even he is a little creeped out by how steady his voice sounds when his hand is shaking so badly. "I'm still here. No one else is left. I synchronized with the Innocence for a little bit, so now you'll never let me go." He smiles, and it stretches his face strangely in its falseness. "At least, until I get another chance."

 _And then I'm gone forever, even if I have to find Yuu again to do it for me._

Alma refuses to go through that hell again. He's given them enough. He's lost enough. He's not giving them his future, too.

Besides. Alma is already a monster. And if there's one thing he and the Order agree on, it's that monsters don't deserve to live.

"Another…" Bak says, and then his face goes white. He swallows, looking away as if he might throw up. "So," he says, softly. "That blood was yours, on the Innocence."

"I wanted to die," Alma says. Doctor Edgar's son isn't very smart, all things considered, if it's taken him this long to figure it out. The world is dark and cold and it is so hard to breathe, and without Yuu Alma may as well be drowning.

"I don't want to be here," Alma tries, and when he sees the flicker of pain and pity in Bak's eyes he leans forward, sensing weakness and striking. "Please, please, I don't want to go back—you could do it, can't you? Please, I just want—"

"Stop," Bak breathes, and then louder, angrier, "Stop!"

Alma can feel tears burning behind his eye and tries to move off the bed, the one chance he had slipping through his fingers, frustration curling in his gut. It's easier to hold onto anger, rather than the well of pain crying out inside him. Easier to be angry, then cry again.

"Stop," Bak says, and maybe he is Doctor Edgar's son after all. Kind façade but cruel underneath. "Stop, stop, I'm not—I promise. I promise, I didn't bring you back for that. I won't put you through that again. I won't, I won't, the Second Exorcist Project is _dead!"_

Alma stops struggling, eye widening. "Wh—What?"

"It's dead," Bak repeats, viciously. "Gone. The Project failed—"

"So you'll just start a new one," Alma says, "It doesn't matter, if I'm alive they'll always start a new one because I proved them right—"

"I _won't!"_ Bak thunders, and he's almost screaming in Alma's face. "I won't, I didn't save you for that! I won't do what they did! I'll keep you alive and I'll keep you safe even if I have look Lvellier in the goddamn eye and lie to his face because I _refuse_ to let _that—that_ happen again!"

Alma stares up at him, shaking, trying to speak but coming up empty. Bak is breathing heavily, chest heaving, hands clenched into fists.

"If it's the last thing I do," Bak says, and it's almost a promise. "You'll live in peace. After what—after what the Order did to you, what my—" He stops.

For a moment neither of them says anything, Alma too shell-shocked to speak and Bak frozen still with his mouth half-open, not even breathing. As Alma watches, the older man visibly pulls himself together, eyes closing and breath hissed out slowly through clenched teeth. His shoulders relax and his hands hang loosely by his sides, but Alma can still see the tension in his eyes, a second away from breaking.

"It's the least I can give you," Bak says finally. "So please. Please. Believe me when I say nothing like the Second Exorcist Project will ever happen to you again."

The worst part is, Alma wants to believe him. He wants to believe in these words so badly it nearly sends him into tears all over again, because what he's saying—live in peace—Alma has never known it. He has never known a life without the Innocence looming there, unresponsive except to send Alma crashing back into the water, body flayed and ripped to shreds. He's never known a life with the CROW hovering over his shoulder. He can't even imagine it.

And Yuu—if he lived, would he see Yuu again? Alma misses him so dearly it aches, and the chance to see his best friend again is almost… too good to be true.

But.

The word lingers in his mind, haunting. But. Would Yuu even want to? Alma killed everyone, after all, and Yuu had apologized but he'd still tried to kill Alma too, Mugen biting Alma's flesh again and again. He'd still wanted Alma to die.

…He'd still _left._

And besides. Alma knows better, now, than to believe what he's told. He knows better. Good things don't come for free. Just because people say it doesn't make it the truth. Happy endings don't belong to little boys who try to kill everyone they knew.

Bak is Doctor Edgar's son, in the end. His word means absolutely nothing at all.

"Okay," Alma manages, forcing his lips into a smile. Bak smiles back and Alma almost hates him for this, for giving Alma hope, even if only for a second.

"Okay," Alma says, and thinks at Bak's retreating back, _You'll be the one I kill first._

Alma knows better, after all. And liars always get what they deserve.

* * *

Bak leaves Alma's room with a heavy heart.

He's happy with what's been accomplished. The smile the child had sported had been weak and trembling but—and maybe this is just wishful thinking—Bak would like it to be genuine. After the hell of the past month, it would be welcome.

Still, it's no easy task, what he's pledged himself too. Alma isn't wrong—in surviving and having proved himself synchronized with the Innocence, there is no feasible way Central will let him go. Not unless Bak does something drastic.

It's traitorous, what he's planning. It'd get him sacked as Branch Head for sure. Bak's whole life has revolved around a single mantra: to the win the war. Anything at all, so long as they win the war. Even if they have to dedicate the whole generation to anonymity. Even if, in the case of Zhu, they keep healing until they die. Even if it means children bearing weapons and going out on the battlefield.

Anything at all, so long as they win.

But it's thinking like that that created the Second Exorcist Project. It's thinking like that that created Alma, only a child but already seeking death. It's thinking like that that killed Bak's parents.

No matter what, Bak won't do as they did. He thinks of Renee Epstein, and his mother's last words to her—or maybe to the both of them.

 _Don't repeat our mistakes._

Bak intends to follow those words to the grave. Traitorous or not.

His footsteps echo in the empty hallway. As he walks, Bak straightens his coat and smooths back his hair, schooling his face into a mask of blankness. He breathes in slow and steady until his heart beats even in his chest.

Everyone knows the boy named Yuu killed Alma. Now all Bak has to do is convince them of it.

Bak shoves his hands into his pockets to hide the hives sprouting there, and goes to meet the CROW.

* * *

 _A/N: Considering Alma was without his Innocence before in canon, even though he was technically still alive, I'm assuming Innocence CAN be removed, if you're not trying to destroy it. Personally, I think intention matters. For all that Central is a bunch of jerks, they didn't intend to kill Alma or destroy the Innocence, just as Fo doesn't, so the Innocence doesn't strike back._

 _On the other hand, the Innocence just might not give a damn about Alma at all, so there's that option too._


	3. Those Left Behind

_A/N: Wow, it's been a while. I am so, so sorry for the long wait. I lost a lot of interest in_ _dgm for a bit there, and went through a few more things besides… anyway, I'm back now. I can't promise how soon the next update will be—I'm splitting my time between this fic, a Batman fic, and few drabbles—but know I am planning on coming to some sort of ending for this story. Whether I continue into DGM canon is… another story entirely. I'm a bit behind, honestly._

 _I am aware of a few story inconsistencies between this chapter and earlier chapters. I have gone back to fix these— the updated version of chapter two has already been posted! Not much has changed story-wise, but Alma and Kanda no longer have last names as of now, and the documentation on the project is noted to be incomplete and a cover for the actual thing. These are the only major changes. Also, on that note, if anything here is a gross inaccuracy, feel free to let me know! I am trying to keep this in line with canon, but I freely admit that the DGM canon storyline gives me a headache. Also, it's been ages since I've read the chapters… so please, feel free to let me know! I really appreciate it._

* * *

 **Chapter Three**

 _-Those Left Behind-_

 _._

 _._

 _._

When Bak was a child, too young to understand what it was his parents did or even the importance of the Order, the empty hallowed halls and carved stone abodes of the Asia Branch were already hundreds of years old. The people it had once housed lost to the tumbling sands of time; the great sprawling city within the mountain had rested undisturbed for ages before the Order had moved in. The entrances had been recarved, pillars added to support the towering ceilings, runes etched into the rock and machines fitted to walls. But even after a hundred years, there were parts of the Branch that would forever remain unexplored, either hidden from sight by crumbling rock or left untouched due to the sheer size of the place.

As a young boy Bak had loved the Branch—the sleek silver machines and low lighting, the ceilings so high he had to crane back his neck to see them. He'd wander for hours through the halls and sleep in the labs, hiding in every nook and cranny for no other reason than because he could.

Maybe that was why Bak, only seven and shy and still stumbling over his words, had so enthusiastically jumped to explore the city beyond the red tape. As much as Bak had adored the Branch, he'd loved the unknown more. He'd just about given his parents a heart attack in his rush to explore the hidden sections, to find the ancient homes closed off from the Branch due to instability. It had always been Fo who was sent to find him, the old spirit an unwilling and unwanted companion to his adventures. Those youthful escapades had gained him her friendship.

Even now, over a decade later, Bak still knows more of the Branch than any other, except perhaps for Fo. At twenty years his collection of hidden toys has grown, both with age and with responsibility. Where at seven Bak hid his candy and toys in those lost ruins, now he has magic and papers that should never have been written cramped within those crumbling walls. Alma is perhaps his greatest secret yet, but Bak has faith the old ruins will be Alma's shield just as they were once his.

It is why, when Bak walks into a low, out-of-the-way room just near the edge of the Branch, a room unknown to most of the staff and even some of the higher ranked, to see the CROW and Lvellier already there and waiting, not even a bit lost… It unnerves him. The Asia Branch and its lost corridors have been Bak's for his whole life; it is not theirs. And yet they are here before him, navigating the halls as though they know them as well as he does.

It sends a shiver down his spine. Bak grips the clipboard a little tighter.

"Bak Chang. You are late."

The room is small and cluttered, the table crammed in the center with barely any space left for anyone to stand. The good thing about this is that the CROW are unable to loom, and are indeed forced to sit, which lessens the intimidation Bak feels when looking at them at least a little bit. The bad news is that they are, for this same reason, closer to Bak than he would prefer, and so will have a greater view of his every reaction.

It is for that reason that Bak watches himself. He doesn't clench his teeth or hands, just keeps his face deceptively calm. He's always been an emotional person, never had any reason not to be, and he hopes to God it won't be their downfall.

"I am so—I apologize," he says finally, tripping over the formalities. He still isn't used to this, to being Branch Head. Some small, vindictive part of him doesn't want to. "Many… our Branch is shaken from the—current events. There were complications."

The CROW operative inclines his head, but Bak can't tell if his poorly crafted lie is believed or not. That's another issue with CROW. Not only are they little more than glorified spies, they have those damn hoods too. How is Bak supposed to know if they accept his bullshit or not? How do they even see?

"Central is sorry for your loss, Branch Chief," the man says smoothly, and Bak wonders if he's imagining the slight sneer in the title. "We offer our deepest condolences and any help you require in stabilizing the Asia Branch."

Bak nods slowly, mouth dry. "It is… appreciated. I will consider it." His words are too awkward, too jilted, nothing like the silver diction the CROW spills like fine honey. Bak has never been one to talk pretty, and it shows.

The CROW seems to think so as well, as he bows again, a show of respect obviously meant to mock him. Bak grits his teeth. "Any aid we can give shall be given." A pregnant pause. "However, there are some things we expect from you as well, Bak Chang."

 _Game start._

He's been waiting for those words, has been bracing himself against them ever since the meeting was arranged.

Bak breathes in deep and even, his heartbeat thumping loud in his ears. He's new to this job, to the workings of Central and the deadly political game played by every member, but he's been a spectator to their ways almost all his life, watching from his mother's side. He doesn't know how it works but he _does_ know how to fake it.

His mother had never been one to talk pretty either. She'd never tried. Instead, she had wielded her words like weapons, sharp and biting with the truth. Bak doesn't have her temper or her ruthlessness, but the strength in her voice and the will in her words— he's known it all his life. Enough to mimic it, if he must.

He hopes it will be enough.

"Yes." This time, his voice comes out steady. "I expected no less."

At the head of the table, Lvellier links his fingers, brows furrowed over his dark eyes, his mouth unsmiling. The piercing stare he directs at Bak is blatantly calculating. Whether it's because he doesn't expect Bak to notice or doesn't see him as a threat is unclear, but it makes his blood run cold regardless.

"To begin with," Lvellier says, "there is the issue of your… conduct, this past week."

It takes all Bak has to meet his gaze. He can't help but feel like those dark eyes are drilling into him, exposing him down to the bare essentials, every nervous tick and poorly crafted lie ripped out into the open. "What issue would that be?"

Lvellier's brows lower, eyes creasing. He looks—amused, maybe, like Bak's calm and clipped language is akin to seeing a child play dress-up. "Your behavior has been amiss. Lacking. Not to mention some of your more recent decisions are… inadvisable."

Bak closes his eyes, just briefly, and thinks of his mother's voice, her cool stare, the sharp bite of her words when she was angry. The grief that wells up nearly brings him to tears, but he fights with it, focuses on the anger and the ice that used to cloud her voice instead.

"Grief will do that to a person," he says, as bland as can be. "But I have grieved. I assure you, I will not falter again. Anything I can do to amend the mistakes I made when I was— emotionally compromised, tell me, and it will be done."

"You will let the CROW have access to the crime scene," Lvellier says, tone just as mild, as though discussing the weather. "And to the documents pertaining to the experiment."

The CROW nearest to Lvellier shuffles, masked face turning towards Bak. The voice underneath is muffled but cold. "You have withheld both, against protocol. There will be punishment for that."

Breathe in. Breathe out.

"I apologize," Bak says again. His fingers curl against his knees. "As I said, I was—emotional. I felt that, as Branch Head, I—I should see. What had happened." Breathe in. "There was debris." Breathe out. "I thought it best to keep the section locked off as we looked for any survivors, to avoid any wandering eyes."

Calm. He could do this. Never mind it wasn't pretty, never mind the bile burning in his throat. He could fool them. He _would_. Alma's life depended on it. So did his own.

Lvellier is unmoving. His gaze hasn't wavered from Bak's face the whole time, and it unsettles him. "And did you find any?"

 _Yes._

"No."

Lvellier smiles. It is not a nice smile, a stranger in foreign lands. It has no home on his face, settling uncomfortably in the sharp angle of his bones and the glint of his teeth. "Are you sure, Bak Chang?"

Breathe in. _Think. He's smiling for a reason. What—_

He's made a mistake.

"…No. There was—Renee Epstein. But we did not find her in the rubble. She escaped during the incident. I didn't think of her."

Breath out.

Lvellier is still smiling. Bak can feel his hands shaking; can feel sweat pooling in the creases of his palm. He keeps his hands folded and poised in front of him. Keeps his face blank. Keeps from swallowing even though he feels he might choke.

"You found no survivors in the rubble? Not one?"

His parents, white coats stiff with blood, faces slack in death. The scientists, torn to shreds. The unborn experiments, their broken bodies lost in the bloodied water of their pods. Alma, breathing but wishing with every fiber of his being otherwise.

"No," Bak says, with finality, and it almost feels like the truth.

* * *

 _Alma walks down the halls, wandering, listless, angry. He is alone. He is alone._

 _Alma is alone because Yuu is not there. Because Yuu is gone. Because they took Yuu away._

 _He knows this. It settles in his bones, in his heart. He knows this. He knows this the same way he knows the Innocence, and the feel of long hair brushing shoulders, of silk gloves and pretty dresses. Instinctually._

 _The Innocence is heavy, weighted. It's supposed to be a weapon, if Alma remembers right, a pretty bow so sleek and perfect—her arrows never miss, not until_ _ **that day**_ _—_

 _It is not like how Alma remembers. Very little is. The Innocence curls around him, digging into his skin. It twists around the small of his back, sinks roots beneath the skin of Alma's neck, attaches itself to his arm so thoroughly the skin underneath has gone numb and tingly. It swishes in the air in long, horrible white swaths, the edges already dyed red in Alma's blood. It is heavy. So heavy. Heavier than she remembers._

 _They kept Alma alive because of the Innocence. Some small part of him hates it for that. Maybe this is fitting. The Innocence has become the chain, an iron ball around a prisoner's leg, the cage it was always meant to be._

 _It drags behind him as he walks, a soft scraping sound that makes Alma shake. Or maybe—maybe it is the cold that causes his shivers, because the Branch has always been cold. Cold stone, cold smiles, cold hearts. Cold, cold, cold._

 _Alma curls his aching feet into stone. It doesn't help. It never does._

 _There is ice in Alma's lungs, on his eyelashes, in his heart. He is cold, colder than he's ever been. There's no warmth left to combat it._

" _Alma? Alma, is that you?"_

 _Blink slowly, there is ice in your eyes. Look slowly, you don't want to hurt yourself. Breathe deeply, before you break—and remember what these people did._

" _Alma? Alma, you—that's blood. That's—What's going on? A-Alma?"_

 _Alma smiles because he doesn't know what else to do, and the Innocence moves so sleek and silent in the air, he doesn't hear a sound until it slides quick and easy through skin, through the chest, between the ribs, piercing ever-so-gently the heart._

" _A-A-_ _ **Alma**_ _—"_

 _He watches, disinterestedly, as the body falls. Doesn't even blink, as stray blood flicks across his cheeks. It is warm and it burns and the corpse's eyes are wide open and bright and then—dark—_ _ **dark**_ _—_

 _But Alma doesn't care. He doesn't care. He can't. He is too cold to care about anything._

 _There is too much ice in his heart._

* * *

He's awake when Fo enters the room, has been for a while now. Like all the times before, it's a slow, gradual process, waking. Whatever drugs they are giving him, they are working. Alma's brain feels fuzzy and his mouth achingly dry, and his thoughts are slow and stupid. It's hard to focus. It's hard to hurt.

That is, perhaps, the only nice thing about this situation. It doesn't hurt. He doesn't exactly feel _well_ , but that's okay. Even the lack of pain is more than he ever expected.

Unlike Bak and Wong, Fo doesn't enter through the door, so there is no heavy scraping slide of stone against stone to alert Alma of her presence. Instead, she phases in right from the wall, with only a few sparks of electricity and the sharp smell of ozone to accompany her.

The moment she appears, Alma's listing gaze snaps onto her, single eye sharp and wild, wide enough to see the white of his eye. He tracks her every movement as she crosses the room, not even daring to blink. In contrast, Fo seems content to look anywhere but Alma—the dresser, the IV, the small table of bandages and bottles near the bed.

It's a small and cluttered room, decorated only with medical supplies and not much else. The state of disrepair on the walls and the door suggests there should be debris, but even that has been cleared out, leaving clean empty corners and undecorated walls pitted with age. There are no windows in the room, only an old lantern hanging from a coat rack to illuminate it, and the dusty light casts weird angles on her face. Fo is frowning as she looks around, just a bit, shoulders hunched and chin lowered.

"Cozy," she says into the silence.

Alma doesn't bother answering. He doesn't want to see her; he doesn't want to talk to her. He turns his head away, cheek pressing against starched linen sheets, and closes his eye.

An awkward pause, and then he hears her sigh, slow and heavy. "You don't have to talk to me," she continues, voice soft but clear. "That's not why I'm here."

Soft scuffs mark her movement, and Alma feels the end of the bed dip as she settles down. He can't move away from her and it makes something lump in his throat. She's so close. Too close. He can't get away.

"Alma," Fo says, and her voice, sharp and no-nonsense, cuts through his rising panic. He turns to look at her almost on instinct, shaking faintly under the thin covers. She's not sitting on the bed anymore, backed away a few feet from his bedstead. Her form is blurry to his vision, his single eye filled with tears.

Alma breathes shallowly, struggling to make sense of the situation. Slowly but surely, his vision focuses, the tears sliding away, a venomous glare replacing it. If Fo is surprised by his animosity, it doesn't show on her face.

"What do you want?" Alma rasps at her, and watches dully as her worried expression slides away into a thin smile, slow and sharp. It's her usual cocky grin made hollow, drained and worn by the past week.

"I wanted to set some things straight," she tells him. "I know you, kid. I'm the only one left in this damn Branch that does. I know what you want. And I know what you're planning to do."

Alma curls his remaining fingers into the sheet, baring his teeth. "If you just _let me—_ "

"No can do. Bak wants to save you. And frankly, kid, there's been enough death for one month. I don't plan on adding to it. Besides, if you died now, there would be… complications. You'll just have to wait."

Alma jerks on the bed, but the sheets and his own injuries hold him still. He snarls instead, wordless with rage.

"Figured that'd be your reaction," Fo says, softly. Her eyes are half-lidded and empty. "Listen, kid. Bak wants you to get better. But he's grieving. And an optimist. I know better."

Her eyes search his face, and then she shakes her head. "Yeah. I know better. You're angry. You're hateful. You were when you committed the massacre and that sort of thing doesn't go away just because you lived through it. But I know something else too, kid. You may want to die, but you don't want to suffer. Right?"

"…What do you want," Alma repeats, and this time he really means it.

"Like I said. I'm here to make some stuff clear to you," Fo says. "Bak's out there right now, hashing it out with the CROW. He's a shitty liar, you know, but he has his moments. Especially when he cares about something. For now, that's you. He wasn't kidding when he said you'd be safe here. But that protection—it has its own price."

Alma stares at her. Fo stares solemnly back.

"But you don't care about that, do you, kid," she says, soft and quiet and sad.

"I'm going to die," Alma informs her, voice blank. "If you won't let me do it, I'll get someone else to."

"Will you," Fo says, and it isn't really a question. "I see. Well, you're going to want to care about this, Alma. If you really don't want to suffer anymore."

For a long moment, Alma doesn't say anything. He doesn't—he doesn't understand Fo, not really. He barely even knows her. He's met her all of three times, and every time she's acted a little different. He doesn't trust her. But she's not wrong, either.

He wants to die. That hasn't changed. Monsters are meant to die, and Alma is nothing if not a monster. And yet.

Alma would do absolutely anything, if meant never being in pain again.

He licks his lips, a nervous tick that leaves him with the taste of blood in his mouth. "You said— you said my protection. Not being in pain. That it had a price."

"That I did," Fo says softly. "Listen, Alma. Bak doesn't know, see, that it was you. Besides me and Yuu, no one knows what really happened that night. Even Renee doesn't know, or if she does, she's done you a real favor by keeping quiet about it. For all they know, it could have been Yuu who went mad. And he disappeared—with that other one, Marie, too. So Bak doesn't know you killed Twi and Edgar. And you're going to keep it that way."

Alma breathes, slow and even. "Why would I do that," he whispers.

Fo looks him in the eye. Her expression is blank and smooth, like a mask. The first time he met her, she was smiling, soft and sweet. The second time, she was grieving. Now there is nothing— nothing but resolve.

"You don't trust him," she says, a blank observation.

"No," Alma says. Of course he doesn't. Bak can promise all he likes, but Alma knows how humanity works. Promises are worth little more than ash. Especially promises made by Edgar's son.

"That's good," Fo says, surprising him. Her face is still terrifying blank. "That's good, kid. You probably shouldn't. But you're still not going to tell him."

"Why not," Alma says, and oh, he's angry now. It wells up in him, too quick to predict, an ugly feeling that tightens around his throat and squeezes his chest. It makes his heart pound and his vision go blurry, the emotion is so intense. "I keep—I keep saying it, you aren't listening! I want to _die_! And if you—if you won't let me do it, then I'll make someone else do it, but you can't keep me here, you can't, I DON'T WANT TO BE HERE!"

Fo doesn't even flinch, just meets his eye squarely. "You're not going to tell him. If you do, kid I can't promise you what will happen. But it won't be pretty. And believe me when I say Bak doesn't have the stomach for killing."

It takes him a moment to understand. His blood runs cold. Fo keeps talking, voice light and casual as if they're talking about the weather, but there is no laughter, no brightness in her voice. She's serious.

"Central's real eager to get their hands on you, kid. And this time they'll be smart about it. So you won't tell him. Not because you want to live. But because this is the price. Either you stay quiet and stay safe here… or you risk going right back into that hell. Without a friend, this time."

The experiments. The pain. The never-ending tests and the needles and the blood and…

He hates her, suddenly, hates her perfectly and completely. He hates them all. It's an ugly emotion, hatred, and it rises up and strangles him in its hold, inky and slick as it fills his throat and his head and his heart. He can't breathe. He can barely think.

Fo doesn't wait for Alma to respond, just stands and heads to the wall. She's said her piece. The rest is left to him.

"You have a future now, Alma," she says shortly. "I don't know how long it's going to last, but it's yours. You decide how you're going to spend it."

And then she steps into the wall, and with a crackle of electricity, is gone.

* * *

Bak walks back into his office with short, clipped strides, all the better to hide how his legs are shaking with fear. His own steps are echoing in his ears, right alongside his heartbeat. His mouth is so dry it's almost painful. His stride is steady, but every step makes his vision swim.

Not for the first time today, he's pathetically grateful for his customary uniform, with its long sleeves and high collar. It hides the many, many hives crawling up his arms and just beginning to bloom on his face, the one true marker of his stress.

Doubtless, Lvellier saw them. It would have been weird if he hadn't. But Bak can pass off a few stray spots to grief, and the ones that scrawled up his arms and across his back during that stressful interrogation—well, _those_ ones are easily hidden.

The pounding throb of his growing headache almost makes him stumble. Hiding the spots themselves, easy. Ignoring the extra effects…. Not so much.

He's far enough away from the meeting room to allow for a brief moment of weakness, so Bak gives in to temptation and leans against the cool stone wall. This is what he tells himself, but in truth his legs are shaking and any moment now he's certain they'll fail him. He can no more take another step than he could will the dead back to life.

He's arguing the merits of just—resting his eyes here, just a moment, when a cool hand reaches up and presses against his forehead.

"Ah, Master Bak. You should have said."

Bak forces his gummy eyes open, wincing against the bright glaring lights. A sliver of fear worms in his gut. "Wong. Did I…"

"It has been a long few days," Wong says, voice steady. "There is no harm in our new Branch Chief taking a moment to grieve after facing his duties. Nor is there any reason why his weakness should be suspect. What child would not grieve for their parent?" His hand is firm on Bak's shoulder. "You did not falter, young master. You have done wonderfully."

The unsaid— _You have not been found out, you did not slip_ — is such a relief Bak nearly falls over, his legs gone boneless. "Thank you." Thank God.

Wong sighs, soft and fond. He helps Bak to his feet and together they make their way back down the hall. "You can thank me," he says, near scolding, "by remembering to take some medicine next time. You know how you react to stress."

Bak ducks his head to hide his flushing cheeks. He's a legal adult, but Wong still manages to make Bak feel like a child. "…Right. Apologies, Wong."

It's a relief to finally reach his office. The door sticks when he tries to open it, but when Bak leans against it, practically falling onto it, it opens easily enough.

Wong catches his arm. Bak looks back at him, and blinks. Exhaustion weighs down on him. "What?"

Wong's face has gone pale and waxy, his weathered eyes sorrowful. He stares at Bak like he doesn't know what to say. It's a dramatic change, and for a moment Bak doesn't understand, but when he turns his face back to his office, he realizes why.

Empty desk. Clean shelves. No chair.

He moved out of here three days ago.

Bak swallows hard, mouth ashen. He doesn't want to go back to that room. He wants to collapse here, in his chair, with the dull lighting illuminating his desk and not much else. He doesn't want to go to his parents' spacious office, cluttered with old experiments they'll never finish, with his mother's straight-backed chair and the smell of his father's cologne lingering on every surface.

But the world doesn't care about what Bak wants. This, too, is a performance. He can't show weakness. He can't falter any more than he already has.

Besides, if Bak is honest with himself—it doesn't matter what room he uses. The ghost of his parents lingers everywhere he turns, from the smell of certain foods to the routes they used to walk. Even if he did move back in here, he wouldn't be able to escape them. All he'd do is prove that he's not fit to be Branch Chief after all. What good is a leader who can't even sit in his mother's chair?

Lvellier doesn't want a grieving boy. He wants a leader who can do his job. If Bak can't prove his worth and his loyalty…

Bak swallows hard and shuts his eyes tightly, breathing through clenched teeth. His hand trembles around the door handle. His head aches, a low and constant throbbing behind his dry eyes.

God. He's so tired.

"Right then. My mistake. I'm sorry, Wong, its… old habits. Let's go."

Wong touches his shoulder. He looks worn, older than he probably should. As if the past week has aged him twenty years. "I understand," he says, and nothing else. Bak is pathetically grateful for it.

It's another two halls and a flight of stairs before he reaches his parents' office—his office, now. The whole journey feels like a trial, Bak moving on autopilot, but he forces himself to stay awake every step. He can't falter. He _won't_ falter.

It helps, having Wong there. It reminds him of the why. He's not just doing this for himself—doesn't think he even could. He's doing this for Alma. For Fo. For Wong and all the scientists working in the Asia Branch, because if Bak goes so does any control the Chang family has built over the past hundred years. If Bak goes, so does any good left within this Branch of the Order, because whoever Lvellier puts in his place will be a rat loyal only to him. If Bak falters, Alma dies, and Alma has been let down too many times already. Bak won't be the next betrayal. He _refuses_.

He takes a deep breath when he reaches the door, a long inhale and a slow exhale, grounding himself. He straightens his coat and fixes his hat, and then, when he can't stall anymore, he reaches out and pushes the door open.

The smell hits him first, faint and horribly familiar. He resists the urge to close his eyes against it, to slam the door shut and entomb the memories back where they belong. It takes everything he has to keep pushing the door open.

Fo is waiting for him inside, perched up on the desk, her bare legs swinging. She watches him struggle in the doorway with a face wiped clean of any expression, and waits patiently for him to step inside and close the door behind him before speaking. If it takes him an unnaturally long time to do both of those things, neither she nor Wong comment on it.

"You're late, stupid Bak. I've been here for ages. What, did you stop to get a bite to eat?"

He scowls at her, grief momentarily overridden by the bite of familiar irritation. "It's not my fault! The meeting ran long."

She snorts, and for a moment it's like nothing has changed at all. "Suuuuuuuure it's not. What, you just couldn't stop talking? What a blabbermouth."

"Why do you always assume it's something _I_ did?" Bak demands. If it comes out a bit like a whine, well. It's not his fault his voice is naturally high-pitched.

"That's because it usually is, stupid Bak." Fo jumps off from the desk, chin jutted upwards and arms on her hips. "Well? Don't just stand there looking like an idiot. How'd it go?"

Just like that, reality catches up with him. His shoulders drop. "It… went." He moves with some reluctance around the desk, hating every step, but knowing that if he doesn't sit down soon he's going to collapse. He sinks into his mother's chair slowly, back unfamiliar with the firm chair, the rest of him just grateful for a chance to rest. "Lvellier suspects something. I know he does."

Wong's face pinches. "He is a cautious man, Lvellier. It may have nothing to do with what you said, Master Bak, and everything to do with his nature."

Fo makes a derisive noise in her throat, looking irritated, but for once her ire is aimless, directed at no one. "Does it matter? So the man looks for betrayal in everyone—so what? The problem is, what if he finds it?"

 _Betrayal._ The word sits heavy. But that is that they've done, isn't it? They're hiding a weapon in the midst of a war that's already running low on ammo.

Bak doesn't care. The world can call it whatever they like. He won't send Alma back to the battlefield. The boy has bled enough. Hurt enough. He's a child, not a weapon, and children should never become soldiers, no matter how desperate the situation. Bak believes that. He must.

He links his fingers under his chin, leans forward. "He wants access to the site of—the crime. Our records and the list of bodies. He's also asked—well, demanded—to let the CROW scour the field."

Wong nods, then straightens. "Master Bak, if I may—we need to get our story straight. There is too much confusion on what has happened. It is understandable, and your decision to lock down on the information to control the situation was the right one, but should Lvellier question you again, we need to have a story set. We need to _know_ the story. So long as confusion remains, it exists as a loophole for Lvellier to strike."

"…Right." Bak takes a breath, mind whirling. He knows what he has to do. It makes his stomach churn, but really, there's no other way. "I need—I need the autopsy reports. The list of the dead, identified and not. Any documentation of who was inside the room. I need—" He stops.

"Master Bak?"

"The labs. The Second Exorcist Project—there was official documentation on the experiment in the general records, but it was too broad, the real records must have been in the labs themselves—" He hadn't even thought to look. He'd been so focused on clearing out the dead it hadn't even occurred to him…

"Fo." She straightens, eyes snapping to his, and he takes a deep breath. "The—the destruction of the lab—the weapon, the damage, the cut—do you think you could mimic it?"

Her face creases with an expression he cannot name. "Stupid Bak, what are you planning?"

"Please. Fo. Can you?"

Her eyes search his face. Slowly, she nods. "…Yes. I can."

"Okay." _Think, Bak. Think. Do what needs to be done._ He's already betrayed the Order by hiding Alma. This is—this is just the logical next step. If he's going to commit treason to protect this boy, he may as well be through. Either he does everything he can to protect Alma, or anything less will be the same as doing nothing. "Any documentation—any paperwork, find it and bring it to me. We have about three hours until the paperwork goes through and CROW gain access to the scene."

It's not nearly enough time, but it will have to be enough.

"Bak? Hey, stupid Bak! What are you going to do?"

"I'm going to figure out our story." He takes a deep breath. "And any information—anything that goes against that, any record of Alma and Yuu's life… I'm going to destroy it."

He'll make them ghosts. He'll erase their lives from the paper trail, and in doing so he'll erase any reason Lvellier has to think Alma may have survived. Any record of their healing factors, any mention of their abilities—it will vanish with them, and in doing so, Alma will be truly free.

…Yuu will be free too. Yuu, who they haven't found, the most likely perpetrator of the massacre, the boy who tore Alma to shreds. Bak—Bak isn't sure how he feels about that. If he should feel anything.

He's trying not to think about it.

Fo's face is unreadable. She shakes her head, not a no, but rather like she's trying to clear her mind. Wong looks worried, his thick brows drawn low, his dark eyes knowing.

"Master Bak, are you sure?"

Is he sure? What kind of question is that? No, Bak isn't sure. He wants nothing more than to close his eyes and forget all of this ever happened. He doesn't want to read the autopsy reports, the experiment records. He doesn't want to read how his parents died or how they tested— _tortured, call it like it is, you coward_ —two children to the point of madness. He doesn't want to sit in his mother's chair in his parents' office, and he most certainly doesn't want to be the goddamn fucking _Branch Chief_.

But the world has made it abundantly clear that it doesn't care about what Bak wants.

"Yes, Wong." His voice is steady, empty, hollow. Gutted of anything resembling emotion. But steady, despite it all. "I'm sure."

Wong looks away. Fo—Fo doesn't. But then, that's her way, isn't it? Fo never looks away. She just meets his eyes, as calm as ever, and for the first time, she really does look every one of her hundred years.

"All right, Bak." No nickname. No mocking. He can't tell if that makes it better or worse. "I'll do it."

He ducks his head in a nod. He doesn't thank her. He doesn't think he could speak right now, and besides, this isn't—this isn't something you thank people for. Not really.

He watches her leave the room. Links his fingers together until his knuckles are stretched white. Waits. There are still things he needs to do. He can break later. He can break after. First he must ensure a future for all of them. So. He waits.

And he holds.

* * *

 _A/N: Fo has proved time and again she is not above using underhand methods to fight and protect people she likes, even if the people themselves don't agree. Plus, some of those fears are really there. You can't protect two people on opposite sides of an issue without stretching some truths, and Bak really can't afford any more distractions. And as sad as it sounds, threatening Alma is pretty much the only way he'd keep it quiet._

 _Also, concerning Alma's pronouns—I am aware I keep switching between them for Alma. I'll generally keep using "he" for the Alma-of-present and "she" for the Alma-of-past. My general headcanon for Alma is that he doesn't really connect with either gender, but uses he/him pronouns for his own convenience. This is just my own personal headcanon, but it is how I'll be writing Alma in the story, so I just wanted to give a head's up._

 _In other news, I tried to explain Alma Karma to my roommate and her response was to shout "HE'S MEW-TWO! HUMAN AND MURDEROUS MEW-TWO!" so, there's that. If anyone wants to write THAT fic._

 _Any thoughts?_


	4. We Wear the Mask

_A/N: To all my reviewers, viewers, and kudos-ers (…?), thanks so much for your feedback and support! All your lovely responses motivated me to finish this chapter, even alongside finals. It means a lot to hear from y'all. So seriously, thank you so much for enjoying this story!_

 _The chapter title is a reference to a poem by the same title; credit for that to the poet. The poem itself is a great read; also, I really feel it applies to the chapter. The same feel, y'know?_

 _Once again, if I've missed a key detail or severely mishandled a character, just let me know! I love these characters to bits, but it's been awhile since I've watched DGM proper, and my knowledge might be a bit out of date… and I'm always a sucker for feedback, haha._

 _And now, without further ado…. Chapter Four: We Wear the Mask, commence!_

* * *

 **Chapter Four:** _We Wear the Mask_

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.

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The worst part about sleeping is having to wake up.

This is not new. Even back then, before… _everything_ , waking up was something Alma regarded with a quiet and secret terror. His sleep was forever deep and restful, the few dreams that crept up on him vague and pleasant in content. He never had anything to fear from sleep—it was the waking world that held the real nightmares. Every night he'd go to bed with relief in his heart at another day passed, and every morning he would wake up with a sense of dismay.

Back then, Alma used to swallow the dread back. He told himself he was being selfish, that there was no reason for him to complain, that he was awake and learning and that was enough. It got easier to convince himself when Yuu finally awakened—when Yuu was there. Yuu changed things. For the first time in his life Alma was glad to wake up, because the lingering anxiety was quick to fade away with Yuu by his side, when Alma could hear his breathing and reach out over the gaps of their beds to touch his hand, to know he was not alone.

Yuu always complained, of course. "Your hands are cold," he'd say, shoving Alma back to his side. "Get off me, you clingy idiot," if Alma tried to climb in next to him. "Such a fucking moron," when Alma confessed his fears, but the next time Alma reached for his hand, Yuu grumbled and swore but didn't push him away, so it was okay. Yuu understood, and that made everything a little brighter, made the mornings a bit better, knowing Yuu was there with him.

Yuu isn't here, anymore. Yuu is gone, and so is anything left in the world worth waking for.

It's worse now. Not just because his dreams have become mainly nightmares. Mostly it's because sometimes, Alma will open his eyes, and for a brief moment he'll forget. He'll forget about Yuu leaving, about what they did, about the experiments and the blood. He'll forget about the massacre. Alma opens his eyes, and for a split second, he thinks he's back there—back then. When Yuu was still with him and still his friend, when Doctor Edgar and Chief Twi were alive, when he didn't know the truth about what he is and what they did to him.

For a moment, he is content. Then he remembers. He always remembers.

The worst part of sleeping is waking up, because in truth Alma's reality is far worse than any nightmare.

The only bright side to this new reality is that his latest keepers are at least gentle despite their rotten cores. It's the only bright side, but Alma finds himself clinging to what little good he has left. The tall man named Wong never shakes Alma awake or touches him if he doesn't have to, keeping his distance, remaining within Alma's line of sight. Today is no different, except that the man looks a bit more harried than he did when Alma saw him last, his white coat wrinkled and deep bags resting under his heavy-lidded eyes.

Once upon a time, Alma would have asked. He would have badgered the man about his day and his life and if there was anything Alma could do to help. He would have tried to make him laugh, make him smile, because Alma used to believe it was always a good thing when people smiled.

Alma watches the man move around the small room and deliberately keeps his mouth shut.

"Good morning," says Wong, his voice soft. He's got a deep voice, low and thrumming like the beat of an instrument Doctor Edgar told him about once. Drums, maybe, if Alma remembers right. It should be intimidating, but Wong always speaks so softly. Not quiet, but low and rhythmic, as if his voice has been dredged up out of some deep pit. It's soothing.

For that, Alma resents him. He doesn't reply.

Wong doesn't look the least bit bothered by Alma's silence. "I'd rather you be asleep for this, but unfortunately, things are as they are. I'll be changing your bandages today. Tell me if it hurts—I'll see what I can do. Your wounds are healing up well, if a bit slower than is normal. But we expected that." As he talks, he gathers up supplies on a small tin tray. Bandages, ointment, scissors, tape. His voice is loud enough to be heard but not loud enough to be grating. He doesn't look at Alma or stare him down, just talks at him and at the room in general. Everything about him is gentle. It makes Alma feel sick.

"I don't care," he says. His voice is still the same disused rasp. He hates it. He hates everything.

"Maybe so," Wong says. "But I don't wish to hurt you, young man. Please tell me if it there is any pain."

Alma doesn't know what to say to that, and shuts his mouth intentionally. Wong sighs, soft and displeased, and Alma can feel his cheeks burning. For a second he feels—he feels chastised, like when he and Yuu used to go running down the halls or fight in the pod room, and Chief Twi would find them and look at them with a stink eye so venomous Yuu once confessed to trying to copy it. He feels like a child.

Then Alma remembers, again, that he is not really a child and that Wong is just as guilty as Chief Twi was, as all humanity is, and his guilt turns back to resentment. What right does this man have to make Alma feel this way? To act gentle? To pretend to care? Alma knows the truth now, about gentleness and smiles and 'good people.' They're lies and fronts, masks to hide the ugliness underneath—for there is always, _always_ , ugliness underneath.

Humanity is a different sort of monster from Alma. But they are all monsters nonetheless.

His angry thoughts are interrupted by a slight tug at his left side, and the sudden surge of itchiness snaps him back to reality. Wong is tugging at the bandages of his right arm, carefully unwrapping the thick layer of white bindings. With every layer removed, another tickle of discomfort washes over him. Wong has one hand under Alma's bicep, supporting his arm as he unwraps it. When the bandage finally comes off, the prick of cold air makes his skin crawl.

For the first time, Alma realizes just how little he can feel. There's the cool brush of icy air near his… elbow, he thinks, or just a bit above it, and his bicep especially. But everything under that, it's as if it's gone numb and cold. He can't feel anything from it. He can't even…

Alma struggles to sit up, his heartbeat pounding in his ears and breath caught in his throat. For a moment he almost thinks Wong is going to fight him, going to push him back to the bed and keep him restrained here like all the scientists from the project would have, if Alma had moved during the experiments, and the thought makes his mouth go dry. Except after a moment of hesitation all Wong does is lean down and gently place a hand against the bandaging on Alma's back, slowly shifting him into an upright position.

Alma freezes at the touch, skin crawling at the contact even with the many layers of bandages between him and Wong's hand. The worst part is, for all that Wong makes him uncomfortable—he's so tall, and he's wearing the same white coat as every scientist Alma has ever known—some part of him is relieved by the contact, too. Alma… Alma used to love people. He had. He'd always lunge at them and gotten hugs from them, and touch had been a comfort, once, but now— now…

He's so confused.

He doesn't want to think about it anymore, so Alma looks away instead, looks down at his arm like he originally intended. It's still numb— there's no feeling, and that's bit weird, but maybe—

His thoughts stutter to halt.

His right arm is… gone.

With the bandages off, Alma is treated to a raw and gruesome view of what is left of his limb. He doesn't even have his elbow—the cut-off point is just above where he thinks it should be, leaving Alma with only the stump of his upper arm. The skin itself is raw and ugly, the stub barely starting to grow new skin, another additional layer of wrapping on the cut-off point soaked through with blood and fluid. Even above his arm isn't whole, the skin cracked and inflamed with long, trailing scars. They crawl up his arm like slender roots, as if something has wormed its way under his skin and through his veins and then burst out, leaving only the trek of its destruction behind.

Alma stares, uncomprehending, before he remembers. The Innocence. This was the arm it had attached to. The arm it had fused with. Which means…the scars up his bicep, the thin veiny lines scrawling up his arm and up beneath the bandages wrapped around his shoulder and collarbone… that is from where they ripped the Innocence away.

Alma reaches for the stump with his one good arm, bound thoroughly but still in one piece, which is more than he can say for the other. He barely manages to lift it up from the sheets before a bolt of searing pain forces him to drop his hand again, his whole arm trembling, bandaged fingers twitching like he's been shocked.

Wong clicks his tongue in disproval from above him, and Alma nearly jumps. He'd forgotten Wong was there.

"Don't move, young man," says Wong softly, and carefully guides Alma back against the propped-up pillows. "It's barely been more than a week since the incident. You will gain more motion as your body mends with time. For now—do not touch!"

Shaken, Alma drops his head in a jerky nod. His throat feels tight, his mouth painfully dry and parched. His breathing has gone wobbly and uneven. He watches Wong shift around the tools on his tray until his eyes catch on his stump of an arm once more, and suddenly he can't look at him at all, and turns his face away to the opposite wall, where there is no risk of him seeing neither Wong or that torn and ruined flesh.

He'd known, somehow, from those nightmarish moments of waking and just a general sense of himself, that he'd been missing something. That he was missing limbs, and an eye, and a lot of blood. But Alma had always healed so quickly, before. He's always healed.

This is the first time it has truly struck him that this is permanent now. His arm is _gone._ Those scars will never truly fade. And whatever else he is missing, his eye, his leg—it will stay gone. He'll never see out of his left eye again. Never be able to use his right arm, his left leg. Never have skin unmarked by Yuu's sword, because he scars, now, instead of healing.

His breathing is funny. He can't—he can't— he can't understand why this is freaking him out so much, because it's such a human thing, but it hurts so much and Alma— he _can't_ —

Wong's touch is feather-light on his shoulder. Alma flinches away as if burned, wrenched from his panic. His breathing is loud and gasping in his ears, wheezing faintly, his chest aching from the strain. His cheek is wet with tears, the bandages over his injured eye feeling damp and sticky, the eye itself a painful sting.

Wong pulls his hand away, his dark eyes unreadable. "It's all right, young man," he says, in that same soothing voice he's used since Alma met him, only a day before. "Think of something else, if you can. I find it helps to focus one's mood on another topic, especially during moments such as these."

Alma stares at him, wordless. The tears are uncomfortably warm on his cheeks, his eye sore and stiff and swollen. After a moment he nods, the movement sending his head spinning, but he can't bring himself to speak and it doesn't feel right to ignore him.

Wong smiles back, and carefully shifts Alma more properly upright, leaning slightly forwards, so he can change the bandages wrapped tight around Alma's chest and shoulders. Alma tilts down his head and closes his eyes, breathing still shaky, only half-listening to Wong's rumbling voice, low and rhythmic, telling a weird story about something that other man, Doctor Edgar's son—Bak—did once, when he was Alma's age.

It makes him think of Yuu, for some reason. Yuu would have hated it. Yuu had always hated Alma's stories, the bits and pieces Alma gleaned off books and what the scientists would tell him. He'd thought Alma's obsession with mayonnaise was moronic and that the stories themselves were a waste of time, but he'd always listen regardless. And every time Alma told him a story about the stars or the sky or the flowers people grew behind their houses in things called 'gardens', Yuu would lean forward and for once his eyes would be bright with interest, a smile curling over his thin lips as he listened.

It hits Alma so abruptly and fiercely he has to blink back tears again, because suddenly Alma misses Yuu. He hasn't really been awake for long, this past week, but he's opened his eyes twice today now, and suddenly it hits him that— that Yuu isn't here.

He wants Yuu to be here. He wants to tell Yuu stories, even if Alma himself doesn't really believe in them anymore, wants to talk and talk until Yuu either hits him or smiles, whichever comes first. He wants to hold Yuu's hand as they go running, and play with Yuu's pretty dark hair until Yuu pinches him to make him stop, and sit in the lunchroom and steal bits and pieces of food off Yuu's plate until Yuu's dark brows are knotted and he's practically vibrating with rage.

He wants Yuu.

Alma's crying again. He knows he is. The man named Wong has finished with the bandages on his chest, is wrapping up his leg now. He's not looking at Alma, even though Alma must make a pretty sorry sight: a small, skeletal boy with greasy dark hair and hollow dark eyes, skin pale and yellowed with illness, swathed all in white except for the few places where red pokes through, blood on the white bandaging, tears and snot all down his face. His chest hitching on sobs and mouth closing down tight on hysterical hiccups, even his tears causing him pain.

Wong places the bandages aside and finally looks at him, expression unreadable, and Alma looks back, still crying, still fighting sobs; still missing Yuu.

He thinks of saying, "I killed them, I killed them all, Chief Twi and Doctor Edgar and everyone else, and I'm not sorry." He thinks of taking Fo's words and her offer and throwing them away, of telling this man and by extension Bak Chang the truth of everything. He thinks of dying, of Central, of leaving this stupid fucking Branch behind forever.

Wong says, "Are you all right, young man?"

Alma says nothing.

After a moment, Wong finally turns away again.

 _It's your choice,_ Fo had said. _Your life to do with as you please_. And Alma wants to die and he wants to leave and he'd do almost anything to achieve that, but he's not willing to walk right back into Central's hands. Not when these people here still pretend to be gentle, not when there's an easier way out right in front of him, and the only thing he has to do is wait.

(…And. The part Alma will not admit, even to himself. He misses Yuu. He misses Yuu _so much,_ and some part of him, some small part of him, wonders if maybe—if he stays here—if he stays hidden—if maybe one day he could—

Wishful thinking, all of it. And yet.)

Alma stays quiet.

* * *

Fo has never liked complications.

Maybe it's an ironic preference, considering Fo's own existence—an intricate combination of science and magic and tradition, all tied into an ancient ruin with more power than humanity knows what to do with. Her sheer presence is something even her creator was not entirely certain of. In a way, Fo is like the Innocence. She exists, but as to how and why and what she is, it's a question that's never been fully answered.

Still, despite this, Fo is a being of simplicity. Simple solutions, simple answers. You cry when you are sad and you scream when you are angry. Basic responses to basic situations—she believes in that. All things can be made simple. Strip away the layers and therein lies the base, and that is all you have to deal with. When confronted with an enemy, you fight them. When confronted with a friend, you help them. Anything and everything is simple if one tries hard enough.

She still believes that. She _does._ But Fo is not a fool, either, and she knows that no matter what she does, this time simplicity is not so easily reached.

Fo protects. That, at least, is still true. But Fo knows that if she wants to protect her remaining charges—Bak, grieving, pained, and terrified of the responsibilities so suddenly thrust upon him; Alma, wounded, hateful, and aching to hurt others as much as he's been hurt—then she can't simplify it. Not this time.

Protection is a dangerous game. Especially when the people she's protecting are on opposing sides. But Fo is old, and age brings wisdom. She's played this game before. She's played it for a long time. She doesn't plan to start failing now.

It's why she doesn't argue when Bak tells her to collect the reports on the Second Exorcist Project, even though there's a number of reasons why it's a piss-poor idea. For one, they're running on borrowed time. It'll take three hours for the CROW to enter the project labs—a combination of the kind of lockdown Bak initiated on the place, and the sheer chaos of the Asia Branch itself—but things like officiality and morality are little more than words to the CROW. Fo has thirty minutes tops, if those bastards aren't there already.

Still, Fo is the Branch and the Branch is Fo. Lvellier may be more serpent than man, slithery asshole that he is, but even he can't move through the Branch like Fo can. She is still faster.

So Fo doesn't argue, even though the idea of Bak seeing those papers twists her insides into knots. He's not ready for it, they don't have time, it's a risk they can't afford—all perfectly good reasons, but if Fo wants to protect Bak, she'll have to count her victories. If she fights him on this, her job will only get harder, and this whole damn situation is complicated enough as it is. It's not worth it in the long run.

It takes her mere moments to travel to the lockdown area, Laboratory Six, where the Second Exorcist Project took place. Yellow tape has no hold on a being that can travel through the walls, after all. When she glides out of the wall it is to empty halls and silent rooms, the CROW nowhere in sight.

The place looks different now than it did only a week ago, back when the massacre first occurred. The dead are all gone, for one, and the rubble, while still remaining, has been pushed back to the walls to allow for easier travel. It's not that different though, not really—the stone is still stained dark with dried blood, and the smell of c hemicals and death hangs heavy in the air even after all this time. The c losed-in area keeps the truth and the stench confined, away from the open air.

When Fo closes her eyes, she can still remember how it looked on that day. The bodies. The blood. Twi and Edgar. Yuu and Alma. And Bak, unaware of it all, face near bloodless with horror at the aftermath.

She doesn't linger here, pushes back against the bad memories rising up and moves forward. Chief Twi and Doctor Edgar were organized people, and Fo has been here before. It's sweet of Bak, to think she has to look, but while Fo's role in the experiment wasn't anything much more than 'glorified watcher,' as she is for the most of the Asia Branch, she'd still been complicit. She knows where the files are. She knows where everything is. That's Fo's role—protector, watcher.

She's done a piss-poor job of that too, come to think. Protection isn't just about the monsters outside. Sometimes it's the monsters in the mirrors, too. She should have known that. She should have guessed. She should have stopped them the moment they began to toe the line. She should have known, that even in war, some boundaries are never to be crossed.

If nothing else, what happened to little Yuu and Alma has taught her that.

Well, no use in regretting the past. Fo knows better now. She'll _do_ better. She's the protector of the Asia Branch, and next time the monsters come knocking, she'll know to look for them in the eyes of her humans, too.

Better late than never. And Fo is starting right now, with Bak and Alma. Yuu and Noise Marie too, come to think, even if all she could do for them was let them go.

In the distance, a loud bang echoes down the halls. Fo doesn't turn or startle, but her lips thin and her steps quicken. The door is in sight, and the cabinets beyond them. Mostly untouched by Alma's rampage, though that's no surprise—the boy had aimed for the people, after all, not the papers.

Footsteps clack against stone, far off, but drawing closer. Fo can feel it. She's running out of time.

 _Hurry. I can reminisce later, dumbass that I am._

The room is easy to navigate—mostly untouched but for a few ruined tables, the broken wood soaked in blood. The smell of death still hangs heavy here. No chemical could ever truly wash the smell away, no matter how highly humans hold their bleach. Things like this—death on this scale—doesn't ever truly fade.

After all this is done, Fo thinks, she's sealing up this wing for good. Let Laboratory Six be lost with the crumbled ruins of the forgotten city. No human lives should ever set foot in here again.

It's easy to find the cabinet with all the project files, and Fo is quick to grab the folders needed, familiar with Chief Twi's organization system. Her makeshift and knifelike fingers sort through the folders deftly, picking through to find the ones Bak cannot risk Central finding. Healing factor and abilities, first of all, the notes on the chest sigil, the Innocence, Alma's appearance… she takes them all and stuffs it into a hollow in her stomach. Mission accomplished.

She should leave, before the CROW detect her, but Fo finds herself reluctant, pausing to glance down once more at the other papers.

The names of the Exorcists. Alma and Yuu's real names, along with the Exorcists thought to be added to the program, the ones who never woke up, Marie included. Behavioral notes. Daily reports. Diaries. Plans.

It's hard to leave them. Age has made Fo sentimental. But she is still a practical being, deep down, and this is the simplest answer: leave the useless files behind, and destroy them before the CROW arrive.

They're in her halls now. Oh, she can feel them. The slimy touch of their magic, the shivery rustle of their cloaks along the ground like a cold wind at her back. Close, and getting closer… but still too late.

Fo lifts her arms and turns her hands into heavy blades, longer and sharper than her usual scythes. These blades resemble something else—a different weapon, a deadlier blade. An imitation of the feather-light knives that only one week before, were wielded to Alma's now-missing arm.

She doesn't have much time, but then, even this little is enough. CROW will never know the difference. How could they? Only Fo was witness to that night. Only Fo and Alma and Yuu, and of them, who would ever tell?

Fo swings.

By the time the CROW arrive, Fo is long gone, and the records room is in tatters, just like the rest of Laboratory Six.

* * *

Bak sends Fo to retrieve the documents only minutes before the CROW will descend on the scene. He knows this. He trusts her to come back undetected regardless.

It's not ideal. But then, very little about this whole thing is ideal, and if anyone can retrieve high-end documents from under the nose of the CROW, its Fo. Besides, she's always been the best at finding things, being a part of the Branch itself, and some small part of him suspects she already knows where to look.

Bak doesn't like to think about that, or what it implies. The fact Fo may have been part of the experiment at all. But Bak has had some practice, this past week, in learning how to face ugly truths. And how to ignore them.

He can't ignore them all, though. The paper in his hands is innocent compared to what he'll soon be given, officially signed and everything. This doesn't make it any easier to read. The list of the dead is long and awful in its length, the printed words impersonal and cold if not for the few faint stains he finds, wrinkled paper where tears fell. The signature at the end of the page, assuring the list's validity, is done by a shaky hand, the ink runny and smeared.

Bak is not the only one grieving. He knows this, but somehow seeing the list of names, people of the Branch who died leaving behind family and friends, makes it more real. He is not the only one who has lost something.

Still, Bak can't help but think it isn't the same. These people will mourn, yes, but they will mourn good people. They will never know just what their beloved fellows did, the crimes they committed, the horrors they wrought. They will never have to live with this knowledge, that the person they cared so much for, committed acts so evil it drove a child to the point of suicide.

Only Bak knows what happened that night, and why. Only Bak knows of the Second Exorcist Project.

He wishes he too were ignorant.

So many names. So many people. Nearly fifty others lay witness to the horrors of the Second Exorcist Project. Did not one protest? Did no one see what wickedness they were committing, what evil they had done? Did no one look at those two children, Alma and Yuu, and regret the harm they inflicted?

The unasked questions burn like bile in his throat. There is no one left to ask, or at least no one he can ask without jeopardizing his safety. It'd probably be better if he stopped wondering at all. He wishes he could turn off his brain, shut it down and close his eyes to oblivion.

Bak is exhausted. He can barely sleep, and what little he manages is feverish and thin, broken by the slightest sound. His head pounds behind his aching eyes, and his whole body aches like a bruise, even though he's done nothing to warrant this kind of pain. Even his hives are acting up more than usual—not as bad as they are in times of acute stress, but lingering, leaving his skin red and itchy with pale blotches.

Bak is tired, and tired of being tired. He's not even doing anything, but he can't seem to stop worrying. It's Fo who needs to dodge the CROW, and Wong who's dealing with Alma and any medical emergencies that might arise. All Bak is doing is sitting at his goddamn desk reading a list of dead people he barely knew in the hopes of finding some clue, some sign he might have missed. Practically nothing in comparison, and yet he feels so wired he thinks he might scream, or possibly scratch all his skin off.

He is so _restless._

If this had been two weeks ago, Bak would have left already. He would have stood from his chair and paced the winding halls of the Branch until he was completely and thoroughly lost, alone until Fo would come find him, calling him an idiot and shouting him back to bed.

Bak doesn't get up. He keeps himself sitting by sheer force of will, curls his stubby and bitten nails into his palms to keep from irritating his skin, and keeps on reading. So what if his vision is blurry, if he's dizzy, if his head hurts? He can break later. _Later_. For now, there is too much to do.

He has to hold steady. No matter what, he has to hold steady. It's a mantra that beats in his head to the tune of his too-quick heartbeat. Hold steady. _Hold_.

An hour later, Fo brings him the reports. It's the best time for it. The only time for it. Lvellier and the CROW are busying looking over the site of the massacre, and there's enough debris left to make the task a daunting one. So little time for retrieval, so little time to read. Maybe he shouldn't. Maybe it would be better if Bak took these dangerous documents and burned them here and now in the light of his lantern, until the neatly bound papers are smeared with ash and fire, charred edges curling inward.

Maybe. But Bak knows he cannot ignore every ugly truth, no matter how hard he tries.

Fo says nothing when he picks up the first document. Her face is blank. When she marched in and set the small stack of folders on his desk, she had been similarly composed, even her gruff, "Here," lacking in its usual bite and usual insult. She's serious. She's absolutely serious. It makes something inside him twist up and knot inside his chest.

He ignores it, and her, and lifts up the first file from the stack.

Breathes in. Starts reading.

Holds.

* * *

As Bak picks through the documents, Fo leaves to play interference. Her work is thorough, but just because she thinks she's covered all her bases doesn't mean there aren't a few loose threads she might have missed. She can't get too close to the CROW—their freaky magic can sense her if she gets within a certain range, even if she travels through the walls—but she doesn't need to be nearby to get a sense on them.

Fo is not a part of the base; Fo _is_ the base. She is the carved pillars and solid stone doors, the crumbling ruins and shiny metal floors, the trees on her rooftop and the cliff-face overseeing the forests. The CROW and Central think she is merely a consciousness, a humanoid being that travels and listens but remains confined to one place, but that is not true. Fo's awareness remains mostly centered in her physical form, yes, but that doesn't mean she is blind to the rest of her.

Their mistake, in the end. They think because they sense her they can catch her, but Fo is everywhere. It's easy to keep track of them, even from afar, their presence betrayed by the rustle of their long cloaks dragging against the floor and the feather-light touch of gloved hands on her walls.

Despite her attempts, however, the CROW move quickly but viciously through the rubble, faster than she can dissuade them. The walls crumble at their touch, the stone unnaturally heavy when they try to move it. Yet even with Fo's supernatural hindrances, the CROW trek on, barely faltering.

They will be finished soon, Fo knows; sooner still if they find the records room and abandon the search after seeing its destruction. It's unlikely, but still a possibility. Bak is running out of time.

It is only when Fo is certain that she can do nothing else that she leaves, traveling back to Bak's new office. She slips out of the wall into her physical form with only a quiet crackle of electricity to betray her presence, shaking imaginary dust out of her hair.

"Bak," she says. "You're running low on time. The CROW will be finished soon."

"Even with your interference?"

"Stupid Bak! There's only so much I can do before it becomes obvious." When he frowns down at the papers, unnaturally quiet, she adds, "Are you almost done?"

"…No," Bak says. He places a file down carefully, his every motion achingly slow. "I haven't even—there's so much. So _much_. An hour isn't nearly enough time to…"

Fo doesn't know whether to be thankful or annoyed. On one hand, she didn't want him to read those records anyway; not now, not when the idiot boy is still so frighteningly fragile. On the other hand, it took her a bit of work to get that paper. Talk about a waste of time.

She settles for neutral instead, refusing to react. Bak is trying to play the game, but he hasn't yet figured out she's playing against him, so he's not looking for a response. Fo won't give him any reason to doubt.

"C'mon, Stupid Bak," she says. "Surely you've found _something_."

His face goes impassive, and Fo straightens, worry striking at her gut. She expected him to whine and complain, to get distracted arguing with her, not… this. This stillness. This blank, empty, unseeing stare.

"Well," Bak says, slowly, too slowly for Fo's comfort. "I've been thinking." There are dark circles under his eyes, and his hands keep wringing, like he's trying not to panic. It's too soon. It's far too soon. He's not ready to talk about this, but then, maybe he never will be.

Fo has a feeling that she should've burned those folders when she had the chance.

There's one file in particular that catches her interest, the one Bak himself was just recently carding through. The pristine folder is held taut in Bak's trembling hand, deceptively innocent in appearance. Its contents could be anything. Fo has watched Bak skim through all the others like a madman, the detailed notes making his eyes water from either the small text or the reminder of the project. But this—not even the last article, not even objectively the most important—this one has made Bak pause, made his feverish race through the papers grind to a halt.

As she inspects him, he takes out another piece of paper—official documents, not the secret files she took from the labs. Under Fo's watchful gaze, Bak traces his finger under the words, the small text unreadable from where she stands.

"Fo," Bak says, staring down at the papers. "I've been thinking. Is the list of dead… are we completely sure it is correct?"

"Don't know," says Fo truthfully, because she doesn't. "But I know they cleaned out all the bodies. I made sure. There isn't any left…in that place."

"I see," says Bak. His throat jumps as he swallows. "Okay. Okay." His eyes fix on the paper, vacant and unseeing. "Okay."

"Bak," Fo says, and when he doesn't react says again, sharper this time, "Stupid Bak! What's wrong?"

"Nothing… nothing is wrong. I just wanted to make sure." He shuffles the papers around like he needs something to do and then stops. Says, so quiet that Fo nearly doesn't hear him, "I met him. I met him." Softer, duller, almost to himself, "Then… was that boy…?"

A tremor of fear, like ice down Fo's spine. If Fo had been human, her hair would be standing on end. "…Bak?"

Bak doesn't seem to hear her. "It—it was him, wasn't it? It was Yuu?" he wonders, voice distant, as if talking to the air. "But then… it doesn't fit, I don't…"

"Stupid Bak, what are you saying?"

"I," says Bak, and then he stops. His eyes finally rise up from the paper, finally look at Fo. It is as if he'd forgotten she was there. The thought makes her go cold. "Fo," he says finally. "Fo, it was, it was Yuu. Yuu killed them. He killed them all. My parents, the scientists, the aides… It was him. Right?"

"Right," Fo says. She feels sick to her stomach, throat tight and sore with something she can't rightly name. "It was Yuu."

After a long pause, Bak's head dips down towards his desk again, his shoulders slumping. "It makes sense," Bak agrees. His eyes are so tired. They stare down at the page, blank and lined with stress, too old to belong to this boy. Too old to belong to Bak. Creased with grief and something angry and helpless, something betrayed. "He must have. I don't understand how else… it makes sense. It must have been Yuu. It makes sense."

"It does," Fo agrees, but she watches Bak's hand tighten on the paper and his brow furrow like he knows there is something he's missing, and all she can feel is cold.

Bak burns the documents.

It is far, far too soon—he's barely seen half of them, merely skimmed those that he has, and beyond the little catch, he's found nothing concrete. But Bak has found what he was looking for, he's figured out his story even if some threads don't make sense— _don't think about it—_ and he no longer has the time to find out any more.

Still, burning those papers makes something awful and ugly coil in his gut, a serpent strangling his insides. He is losing so much. In these papers there might be a way to help Alma, a way to understand just what the hell his parents were thinking when they began this awful project. Something, _anything_.

At the same time, he cannot deny his relief. The boiler room is so hot it makes the ends of his short hair curl, and he can't ignore the weight lifting off his shoulders as he watches those papers turn to ash in the heart of the fire. They should never have existed in the first place. Maybe it's not so much _losing_ as it is _setting things right_.

Bak can only hope.

The return back to his parents' office is a far cry calmer than his original rush from the meeting room, just last night. It feels like days. Bak has settled in the eight hours since then, in a way. He has gained some measure of control. Wong and Alma are safely hidden in the ruins, out of Lvellier's reach, and Fo's theft and destruction is safely concealed by the remnants of their disaster. The papers that could have damned Alma are lost for good now, and with them another threat to his safety stopped in its tracks.

Yet, for all of Bak's perceived calm, he wants nothing more than to collapse into a chair and sleep for a month. The past week—hell, the past eight hours—are taking their toll on him. He feels satisfied and sick in equal measure, relieved and stressed, assured and anxious. Is this what it means to be Branch Chief? Is even victory and safety tainted now, turned dark and untrustworthy by paranoia? Will he never be able to sleep soundly again?

It's a small price to pay, Bak knows _._ He's been groomed for the role of Branch Chief his whole life, learning the tricks and turns at his mother's side. He's more prepared than anyone else in this base for the role. But the thought of it—of living like this, forever, never resting and never feeling truly safe—the idea makes his eyes burn with helpless tears.

 _Mother. Father. I don't want to do this._

Only yesterday, the thought was pleading. Now, it is simply tired. Bak no longer has the luxury nor the freedom to do whatever he wants. If he chooses to protect what matters, if he wants to weather this storm, then he has to do whatever it takes, even if it makes him sick inside to do it.

He can no longer afford to be selfish.

As if summoned by his moody thoughts, the sharp click of expensive shoes on tile reaches his ears. Bak closes his eyes against the now-familiar burn of tears and forces himself upright, splotched hands once more hidden in his lab coat pockets. By the time Lvellier and his guards sweep around the corner, Bak is standing tall, as if he had never bowed in the first place, his eyes dry and his face blank. His hand is on the office doorknob, slowly pulling the heavy door shut, as if he has just exited rather than just returned.

"Bak Chang."

Lvellier's voice sends shivers down his spine. Bak takes a fortifying breath and turns to meet Lvellier's eyes, trying not to shake, suddenly praying that the smoke of burning papers hasn't lingered on his skin. He tilts his head in polite acknowledgment and hopes they can't see how his shoulders are trembling.

"Inspector Lvellier," Bak says, and it surprises him, how calm his voice sounds. It's distant to his own ears, as if belonging to a stranger, but despite this it is strong. Unfaltering in a way Bak doesn't feel. "There you are. The CROW informed me you would be leaving soon. As—As Branch Chief, allow me to escort you."

The man's eyes glance over him, unreadable. He smiles, almost sympathetic, but sympathy on his face is ugly and almost a sneer. "There's no need. I am aware that you have suffered some... shocks, this past week. It is un—"

"Inspector Lvellier," Bak says, and his interruption surprises even himself. He pauses, then rallies himself. "As I have said. My grief will not hold me back from what needs to be done. As my duty demands, allow me, as Branch Chief… to escort you out."

The funny thing, Bak thinks, almost hysterical, is that he is not actually lying. It's just that what needs to be done is treason, apparently. And in all honesty, Bak doesn't think he'll be able to breathe properly until he knows _for sure_ that Lvellier and his dogs are out of the Branch for good.

None of these thoughts make their way past his lips, yet Bak cannot help but think that Lvellier is aware of them anyway, from the look on his face as he slowly nods his acquiescence.

"Very well, Bak Chang."

Bak nods back, stunned by the easy agreement. He lets go of the office doorknob cautiously, as though waiting for Lvellier to change his mind. When nothing happens, he draws himself straight and gestures down the hall, trying to hide his sudden spike of nervousness.

"This way, then," Bak says, and leads Lvellier down the winding halls of the Asia Branch.

"I wonder," says Lvellier, as they walk to Fo's door. "If it would interest you to know… our search has been completed."

"Already?" Bak asks, with terrifying blankness.

"Yes."

"Did you find what you were looking for?"

Lvellier smiles. "No." His voice is cold. "The destruction of the records room was… sadly too thorough to recover the documentation we sought."

 _Thank you, Fo._

"I see," is all Bak says, and a sudden flash of brilliance has his shoulders bowing in a supposed lapse of strength, as if the news has disappointed him. "That's unfortunate."

Lvellier stops walking. After a moment, Bak does too, unsteady feet nearly tripping on the stone.

"Ah— Inspector Lvellier, what is—"

"Bak Chang," Lvellier interrupts. "Central will be taking the bodies you recovered from Laboratory Six, experiments and scientists alike, and returning them to Central. I have reason to believe what I seek might be there. It would be a great boon to the Order. Do you understand?"

It's not hard to guess the meaning behind Lvellier's words.

 _Alma. They're searching for Alma._

Strangely, for once this thought does not inspire fear in Bak—but anger. _'What' he seeks, not who? 'It'? He's bled for them, suffered for them, and they don't even have the decency to label him as human?_

"Yes," Bak grits out. "I understand perfectly, sir."

Lvellier looks amused. "Bak Chang," he says, mildly. "I never liked you. Too weak-willed. Too emotional. Your parents, well, _they_ at least knew how things worked."

The insult shakes him to his bones. Bak fights to keep his composure. "I'm… I'm learning."

"Yes," Lvellier says, sounding strangely satisfied. His dark eyes glisten like beetle shells, hard and shiny, reflective as glass. Hiding whatever thoughts lie behind them. "You are, aren't you? Then let me give you some advice, Bak Chang, leader to leader. Your parents were brilliant people. Their loss is a crippling blow to the Order. But for all their brilliance…"

Lvellier pauses, just slightly, then continues with ruthless abandon, voice mild and pleasant as though talking of the weather. "They faltered," he accuses, with terrible certainty. "They got in over their heads. Their hearts got in the way of doing what had to be done. Of the right thing. The necessary thing." His eyes are empty. Bottomless. Hollow like a false chest—a promise of treasure, only to find nothing within, no substance, not even a memory of once existed.

"Take care, Bak Chang," says Lvellier, "that you do not follow in their footsteps."

The words are cutting. They strike deep into Bak's chest, flay open his wounds, dig into the fear and uncertainty that has dogged his steps ever since that day. Yet there is anger too, helpless and directionless anger, at his parents and at the world and the unfairness of all this. He draws strength from it. He draws courage from it.

The words are cutting. Except Bak has already cried. He has shaken himself to pieces. He has looked the victim of his parents' evils in the eye. And he has promised—promised to hold. To hold steady and weather whatever comes until they are all safely away from the storm.

 _Don't repeat our mistakes._ Who knows, truly, what his mother meant? Maybe she regretted the project, or maybe, as Lvellier says, the mistake was in showing leniency. For not harming Yuu and Alma, and giving Yuu the chance to strike them down. Or perhaps she meant the Second Exorcist Project, or just Yuu, or just Alma, or maybe she meant something else entirely.

 _Don't repeat our mistakes._ No matter what she really meant by those words, Bak has already made his decision.

"Don't worry," Bak says, and meets Lvellier's empty eyes without faltering. "I won't."

How funny they are, Bak and Lvellier. A single conversation, and yet what Bak says and means is so different from what Lvellier himself is hearing. They speak, but neither is listening. How comical they are. How strange. How distant and disconnected the Order seems, seen from a traitor's point of view.

How stupid Lvellier must be, to think Bak no threat. Even with his suspicions, he accepts them, waits for Bak to make his move before he strikes. Lvellier sees a fearful child instead of a leader, but he forgets that Bak has lived among leaders his whole life.

Bak is a child. Bak is afraid. But if he is to go down in flames then he'll make damn sure Alma is safe when he goes, even if that means dragging the worst of the Order down with him. Humanity will probably be better for it.

Lvellier just smiles. What does he see, looking at Bak? A traitor? A child? Or perhaps he sees a loyal subject, a boy grieving and unfit for power. Maybe his knowing is all in Bak's head; maybe Lvellier isn't so all-seeing after all.

No matter the truth, it does not change the facts. "We'll see," says Lvellier, and Bak knows that he's won.

Bak doesn't smile at the realization. He doesn't relax. He tilts up his head and looks Lvellier in the eye and replies, "Yes. You will."

The game has only just begun. It's not checkmate, not yet. Merely a pause, the game suspended for another day.

It is enough.

He watches Lvellier leave. He escorts the remaining CROW from the Branch. And only when Bak is sure—completely, utterly sure of their absence—does he walk to the ruins where Wong and Alma are hiding, Fo a discreet but supportive presence by his side.

Bak opens the door, and Wong looks up, startled. The boy, Alma, is awake—eye half-lidded and uncertain as he tracks Bak's path across the floor, as he sinks into a nearby chair. He feels loose and hollow, whatever supernatural force that has kept him running for the past two days abandoning him at last. He sags in the chair like a broken and boneless doll, limp and motionless.

Wong looks alarmed, now. "Master Bak?"

"It's done," Bak says. His hand is pressed against his face. He doesn't see the look Fo gives Alma, the way Alma glances away. "It's done. Inspector Lvellier left. Central is gone, for now." He digs the meat of his palm hard against his eyes, feeling the now-familiar pinprick of tears there. For the first time, it isn't from grief.

Bak is smiling. In all the days since the massacre, he can't remember the last time he smiled. It crinkles his cheeks and pulls at his trembling lips, watery and thin and achingly real.

"It's over," Bak says, just to say it, just to hear how it sounds, exhaustion clinging to his voice. "It's over. For now, we are… We're safe."

He breathes in, breathes out, and finally lets go. The tears tickle against his palm. His smile is stretched so wide it hurts.

"It's over," Bak whispers. "It's over."

* * *

 _A/N: Our story is moving forwards! This won't be the last we see of Central and Lvellier, but now we'll finally get some comfort before things go to hell. :D_

 _In other news, Fo's pov is so hard to write. She's very difficult to pin down. Still, I feel that Bak isn't the only one deserving the spotlight. Fo's role in this story deserves some attention to. … Bak, on the other hand, is really cathartic to write during finals week. That whole paragraph about him being tired but not stopping? That is me, venting. I too am so goddamn tired._

 _Something else I'm having quite a lot of fun with is messing with everyone's perceptions. Just because they think something is true doesn't mean that it is. Alma views Bak as being composed and in control, and rather serious, like his mother. But Bak has been an absolute wreck inside, as we all can see, only he doesn't act like it outwardly. Fo, too— her view of Bak, and Bak's view of her, are equally flawed with assumptions. Even Alma, in Bak's eyes, is simply a miserable child—whereas Fo, and the reader, can see that alongside that, Alma is also feeling quite a lot of hate. (I almost titled this chapter "Liar, Liar" for this reason.)_

 _Up next: Chapter 5: After the Storm— With Lvellier gone, Bak focuses on strengthening the Branch. Alma focuses on recovery. But sooner or later, they're going to need a little help…_

 _Any thoughts?_


End file.
